Master's Thesis
by AuronLu
Summary: Returning home with the cure to a deadly plague, Nyssa finds the Master meddling with her own past, the Doctor's future. Faced with time paradoxes, she turns to Tegan for help. Meanwhile, the Doctor races to keep time from unraveling. If they fail, the cost may be the lives of Nyssa's family, her adopted planet, or all the Doctor's future regenerations. [Big Finish, older!Nyssa]
1. Prologue

The gentle hum of the TARDIS gave nothing away, nor did the faint clucks and beeps issuing from the console room. Nonetheless, the Doctor did not hurry his steps as he strode towards the flight deck where someone was covertly setting the time-ship in motion. There were only three people he trusted with his ship's inner workings. One he had left behind in e-space, one in 22nd century London, and the last was a student pilot at best. Even so, her competence was a source of secret pride for him. Once he had fostered her for the sake of her murdered father, until she outgrew the nest. It was a rare treat to have a former fledgeling circle back on graceful, steady wings, flying alongside once more.

For a while.

"So," he said, pushing through the door and shoving his hands into his pockets. He was not surprised to see that Nyssa had donned the survival suit she had been wearing when they discovered her scouting a derelict outpost in deep space. "I take it that our pleasant reunion is coming to an end?"

She startled, straightened, and turned to face his affable smile. "I'm sorry, Doctor. It's difficult to enjoy the scenic route, however dear the company, when there's an epidemic waiting for me back home." She nodded towards a black canister sitting next to the hat stand. "I've synthesized enough antiviral in the TARDIS lab to get started, but it's doing no good here."

"I understand. It's selfish of us to be keeping you from— oh, good morning, Turlough, Tegan, come to see Nyssa off?"

The pair had straggled in behind him, Turlough finishing off a coffee that wasn't supposed to be on the flight deck during operation, Tegan visibly drooping at the Doctor's words. The lean young man with startling ginger hair was still dressed in his British school uniform, never mind that he was not actually from Earth and had been exiled there as a prison. Tegan was the only human among them, a spiky-haired Australian woman sporting a loud parti-colored top, leather skirt and high heels. Sometimes she reminded the Doctor of creatures that warned off others with their bold markings.

"Leaving so soon?" Turlough drawled, giving the Doctor a pointed glance. Time aboard the TARDIS was difficult to measure, but it was at least several weeks since they had offered Nyssa a lift home.

"Nyssa!" Tegan's mock-indignation sounded less joking than she probably intended. "You're not leaving me stuck with these two pillocks again, are you? I've half a mind to tag along and pass you your test tubes. But no, I'm forgetting, you've got someone else to—"

"Tegan." Nyssa embraced her. "I will miss you."

Tegan clutched the smaller woman close, struggling to sound casual. "Well, it's not like it's forever goodbye, is it? I mean, you and I have each found our way back to the TARDIS once already."

"I don't know, Tegan."

"You're supposed to say something cheerful and encouraging, brainiac."

"Then I shall be sure to stock ice cream for your next visit."

"There you go!" Tegan grinned. "Did you hear that, Turlough? I think she made a joke. In another fifty years, she'll have us in stitches."

"Wonderful," he said. "It will make a nice change from plasters and splints."

"Now, what's this?" the Doctor said, pulling up the settings that Nyssa had been entering when he came in. "I may be growing forgetful, but it seems to me these aren't the coordinates for Terminus. It occupies a rather unique position in space."

"Oh... no, not Terminus," Nyssa said, an odd catch to her voice. "You don't imagine I've been holed up there for fifty years, do you? We treated the last known case of Lazar's disease over a decade ago."

"You haven't told us much of anything about what you've been up to, really," Tegan said. "Apart from chasing intergalactic bugs with a flyswatter."

"Well, your eyes glaze over every time the Doctor and I start discussing Golgi insertion. And I was on vacation, more or less." She sighed. "But it's past time for me to return to my laboratory."

"Does this laboratory have a name?" Turlough said. "A planet?"

"Very well." The Doctor stepped away from the console with a sweep of his hand. "Care to do the honors, Nyssa? One last time."

"Oh, yes. Thank you, Doctor." She took his place and began to key in the materialization sequence with subdued efficiency. The Doctor stared over her head, watching the time rotor as it began to rise and fall. His hand hovered over her shoulder for a moment, then dropped to his side.

Tegan turned away. She wanted to shout at both of them for _not_ shouting, _not_ arguing, for frittering away Nyssa's final moments with them in banal routine. For once, she kept her mouth shut, but she indulged in a selfish wish for the TARDIS to break down in transit. Just to spite her, it would probably be on time for a change.

"Can't you teach _me_ to do that?" Turlough said, watching Nyssa's hands fly over the controls.

"What, and give you a means to bolt whenever things get dicey?" Tegan said.

"He who fights and runs away lives to rescue his friends—"

"The next time will be the first."

"Children, children." The Doctor raised his hands. "The TARDIS is an immensely complicated and particular machine. Her operation requires mental rapport as well as practical knowledge. Nyssa is quite unusual in possessing the advanced technical skills, psychic sensitivity and _tact_ necessary to manage her."

"_Tact_?" Turlough arched an eyebrow. "You're telling us the TARDIS needs coddling? Doctor, you punch the console about once a day to make it work properly."

Tegan laughed. "I guess that's why Nyssa's landings are smoother than—"

The floor kicked under them, throwing Tegan and Turlough against the wall while the Doctor lunged for the console to keep Nyssa from skidding under it.

"You were saying?" Turlough growled, wiping coffee from his eyes.

"Tachyon surge," Nyssa gasped. "Doctor, the temporal readings—"

"I see it," he said, reaching around her. "Hold on. Got to dodge it. Materialize on my mark."

Like an earthquake building from a mild shudder to a terrifying crescendo, the heaving of the floor continued to grow more violent. The roundels stuttered, their illumination dimming to a sickly amber, while the lattice walls began to take on a milky, almost translucent appearance.

"We're breaking up!" Turlough said. "Emergency landing, now!"

"Doctor?" Nyssa said, clinging doggedly to the edge of the console.

"Steady," the Doctor said, maneuvering around her and pouncing upon buttons and levers in what Tegan recognized as mad improvisation. "Ready. Three... two... one... mark!"

He slapped both hands on the controls as Nyssa threw the materialization switch. There was a flash, a sizzling pop, acrid smoke rolling out of the central rotor like a steaming volcano, and the TARDIS stopped moving so suddenly that everyone went flying. The faint hiss of the fire suppression system kicked in under the console.

"You just had to leave us with a bang, didn't you?" Tegan said, offering Nyssa a hand up.

"So where are we?" Turlough said. "What did you say this planet was called?"

"No, wait," Nyssa said, stopping Tegan from activating the viewscreen. "The controls are hot. Doctor, are you all right?"

"Fine, fine," he said, sprawled against the foot of the doors. "Turlough, help me up; tachyon particles in that concentration make me rather light-headed."

"So much for Nyssa's piloting skills," Turlough said, pulling the hat stand off of him.

She frowned but said nothing, covering her nose and mouth as she leaned down through the wisps of smoke to examine the navigation screen. "The spatial coordinates are correct. But we're several decades too early."

"Nyssa's piloting skills aren't to blame; it was a powerful tachyon explosion penetrating the TARDIS shielding," said the Doctor. "Exactly what kind of research are they conducting here, Nyssa?"

"Strictly medical, although some of the research labs use radioactive materials. But there's nothing I can think of to explain these readings." She pointed at the scanner. "Look. Cherenkov radiation."

"Is that dangerous?" Tegan said.

"We should leave at once," said Turlough.

"No," the Doctor said, stumbling over to take a look. "Minute levels, insufficient to harm living tissue. Surprisingly low, considering the scale of the disturbance. Fascinating."

"Doctor," Nyssa said, "Whatever caused it, there's no point in staying here. Can the TARDIS take off?"

"I'm afraid not," the Doctor said. "Auto-repairs will take some time. And that tachyon field poses a significant navigation hazard for any passing TARDIS. If we try to jump forward through it, it could burn out the stabilizers and strand us in the time vortex."

She frowned. "It should be simple enough to bypass the field of disruption, Doctor, provided that we move laterally before the time jump."

"I'd rather not leave an obstacle like that on your doorstep, Nyssa. Come along. The origin of the explosion wasn't far from these temporal coordinates, so presumably, the source is outside." He reached for the door controls. "As your current self is on Terminus perfecting the cure for Lazar's disease, there's no risk of you bumping into yourself. Care to give us a tour?"

"Doctor, wait!" she said, but it was too late. His coattails had already vanished outside. Shaking her head, she moved across the room to check the seals on her medical container. "I hope this wasn't damaged. I'll need to run a few tests."

"Aren't you coming?" Tegan said.

"Hang on. What's really going on here?" Turlough folded his arms. "Why is Nyssa being so secretive? What's so special about this place?"

"Nothing," Nyssa said. "But there's someone here I don't want to meet."

"An enemy?" Tegan said. "Not the person who set off that time bomb thingie?"

Nyssa laughed weakly. "Hardly. He's a dream analyst. Come on."

They stepped out into a fragrant grove of pines, or some local analogue whose craggy red bark and feathery foliage captured the breeze in a rushing whisper like the sound of distant surf. Long needles carpeted the ground in a soft, springy weave studded with small white and yellow flowers pushing up through the thatch. There was birdsong overhead and voices in the distance. Stone buildings rose above the two-story trees like canyon walls pushing up through a sea of green fog.

"Hey?" Tegan said. "I thought you said we'd landed in the right spot. This isn't a medical lab, it's a city park!"

"They don't have to be mutually exclusive, you know. Patients heal better when they don't feel like prisoners." Nyssa spoke with some feeling; she had been one of the few patients to survive Terminus' brutally primitive facilities before she took over its administration.

"Now where has the Doctor got to?" Turlough said. "Typical. Asks you for a tour, then goes dashing off."

Nyssa bit her lip. "Come on. There's an open quad this way."

"Stop fretting," Tegan said. "You're home! And it's gorgeous. I'm so glad, Nyssa. I know you must've spruced up Terminus after we left, but I always worried about you withering away on that dingy old space station."

"Yes," Nyssa said, tipping up her chin to breathe deeply. "Home. And some of your descendants are here, Tegan. Look." She bent and plucked a small white bloom like a miniature daisy from a spreading ground cover.

Tegan took it from her and sniffed. "Mmm. Don't tell me... chamomile?"

She nodded. "Most of the introduced plants are edible or medicinal. Oh, by the way, other genders are more visible here than on Earth or Traken. The TARDIS should translate, but you may hear a few unfamiliar pronouns."

Tegan's forehead furrowed. "What, like Ziggy Stardust?"

"Perhaps." Nyssa noticed Turlough's sardonic eyebrow and shrugged. "Come on."

They emerged at the edge of a roughly rectangular lawn encircled by a wandering path. Buildings bordered most of the quadrangle, but each had inset cavities, nooks and archways for the trees to spill into, blurring the interface between structure and nature. At the center of the grassy area was a large circular fountain whose basin doubled as a sundial, occupied by several skinny dippers. Other students sat or sprawled on the stone rim or on benches surrounding the quad. Here and there, medical personnel in pale blue uniforms were escorting patients along the crushed shell walkways.

Tegan noticed that most of the locals had dark coppery-brown to olive-brown skin and curly black hair, although there were enough exceptions that visitors stood out more by their clothes than their complexions. Casual campus attire ran to coveralls and clogs or tunics with leggings and low boots. Hoods, cloaks or pocket umbrellas poking out of knapsacks suggested unpredictable weather.

She grinned. "Hippie university. Why am I not surprised you fetched up here?"

"No sign of the Doctor," Turlough said. "How does he do that?"

"Hullo," said a young man sitting on a nearby bench. He removed his headphones and switched off the digital recorder on his lap. "Exchange students, are you? Where from?"

"All over," Tegan said. "And we're just visiting. Nyssa's a medical researcher; I'm an old friend. Turlough here is still in school, though!"

Turlough shot her a sour look as the student hopped up and introduced himself eagerly. "Vevik Sanghu, sixth year, homeopathy. Was that blond fellow in the beige coat your advisor, then?"

"The Doctor? I suppose you could put it that way." Turlough said. "Which way did he go?"

"Your left, towards the BHR Center," the young man said, pointing to a curving path skirting the grove from which they had just emerged.

"Thanks," Turlough said. "Nyssa, if you're so worried about running into someone, why not simply wait in the TARDIS while we— hey!"

"Rabbits!" Tegan's peculiar curse described the speed at which Nyssa had dashed off to the right towards a covered walkway, an alley leading away from the quad between two buildings. "Nyssa! Wait for us!"

Turlough rolled his eyes. "I'm not chasing after her this time. And if she gets any moss stuck on her, _you_ can apply the weedkiller."

"Don't let the Doctor leave without us." Tegan turned and jogged after Nyssa, turning into the long, columned arcade covered in a spill of blooming creepers. She failed to notice the small figure pressed behind a pillar, half-hidden in the tendrils of ivy and flowers. Nyssa put an arm out to intercept, raising a finger to her lips.

"What now?" Tegan said. "You move pretty fast for an old lady."

"Hush." Nyssa drew her back into the shadows. "Look down there... carefully. Stay out of sight."

Pushing foliage away from her face, Tegan leaned out and squinted down the length of the walkway. At the far end, two figures were walking side by side, silhouetted against the bright sunlight beyond. "You mean the professor and that kid?"

"Look closely."

The older gentleman had his hands clasped at his back with jovial formality. There was a mannered elegance about him that seemed at odds with his plain gray capelet and coveralls, apparently this planet's equivalent of a professor's tweeds. As they watched, the pair slowed and halted, turning to face one another. The older man leaned forward, listening gravely to the student who punctuated his speech with the enthusiastic gestures of a conductor. The trim black beard and high, pale forehead of the listener were all too familiar.

"That man." Tegan clutched at her friend's arm. "No, Nyssa, it can't be."

"It is."

"The Master!"

Nyssa's eyes were riveted not upon their enemy, but on the weedy-looking youth. "Tegan, I need you to do something for me."

"Oh, no, you don't. I am _not_ going back to fetch the Doctor while you tackle that psychopath alone!"

Desperation, helplessness and raw anger flared in Nyssa's eyes. "Follow them. Try not to be seen, but _protect that boy."_


	2. Two

"Doctor! There you are," Turlough said, puffing towards him. "We seem to have lost Nyssa."

"Mm," the Doctor said, peering through his glasses at a large animated directory. "Biohazardous Research Center. Genetech, cryonics, hydroponics, pharmaceuticals, pathology..." The touchscreen display formed the top third of a flat column of frosted glass, erected in the exact center of a broad circular plaza paved with solar panels. Around the directory was a hub of five large pods like flat-roofed sheds, which in turn were surrounded by an outer zone of scattered planters, aerials, vents and light wells. Square flagstones, every fifth one inset with a roundel, formed a perimeter circling what was obviously the roof of a large underground complex. The general effect was that of a clumsy Stonehenge whose outer rim had been hammered flush with the ground.

As Turlough jogged up, the double doors of one of the pods slid open, disgorging five academics arguing over some sort of "cognizance spectrum" and one harried-looking student who squirted between them and sprinted off.

"Excuse me," the Doctor said. "Can anyone tell me where the temporal—"

"Relative classification of awareness is quite complex enough without bringing the fourth dimension into it," snapped an elderly professor.

"But Dr. Ille," said one of her colleagues, "Surely, since mental processing levels fluctuate throughout the day, the time axis must be factored in."

The Doctor raised his hand to try again, then shrugged and stepped aside until the ambulatory debate had drifted away. He returned his attention to the directory, tapping a label with a finger. "Bioelectronics. Nyssa's specialty back on Traken, before she shifted to medical research. But surely, even in a different field, she would have heard about it if another department was researching temporal mechanics."

Turlough cleared his throat. "This may come as a shock to you, Doctor, but I don't think Nyssa is telling us the whole truth."

"Really." The Doctor pulled out a coin, flipping it onto the back of his hand. He frowned and turned it over before heading towards one of the lifts.

"Really."

"Well, I'm sure she has her reasons." He jabbed at the call button and stepped back to scan the notices and advertisements that had begun to scroll by on the directory's default screen.

Turlough rolled his eyes. "Why is it that nobody trusts me, but when somebody else in the TARDIS starts acting suspiciously, you don't care?"

"Don't care? Have you any idea how many years she and I traveled together while Tegan was playing air stewardess back on Earth? Nyssa was... well, my ward_,_ you could say, once upon a time. But now I must honor her wish to be dropped on some unknown planet without even a forwarding address. I may be accommodating, Turlough, but I don't have to like it."

"Unknown? But the TARDIS will have a log."

"When I surprised her on the flight deck, she was programming the computer to wipe all records of this time-jump."

"But _why_?" Turlough said. "What if she's still under the influence of... of... I don't know, that moss infection? What if the Mara's come back? What if the the Black Guardian's trying to take her as a hostage? What if someone forced her to fly the TARDIS into that tachyon field?"

"Turlough. When you first came aboard, I trusted you with my life on several occasions. I was not mistaken. Are you saying that I shouldn't give Nyssa the same benefit of doubt?" The doors parted, and he gave Turlough a stern look before stepping through them.

"Of course not, but..." Turlough spread his hands, following. "If someone's getting at her mind, she's not responsible for her actions. She may be in danger. At the very least, shouldn't you be keeping an eye on her?"

"Tegan's with her, isn't she?"

"Well, yes. I think so."

"_Q.E.D_. In the meantime, Nyssa's secrets are not our business. It's our job to—" he winced, reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, knocking his glasses askew. "To—"

"Doctor?" Turlough caught his shoulder as he swayed. "Are you all right?"

"You can't feel that?" the Doctor said. "As if time just... _shuddered_?"

"I say," said a bright voice behind them. "Is your advisor in need of a doctor?"

Turlough looked up. It was Vevik, the student who had greeted him earlier, standing with his foot propping the door open. His face was creased with friendly concern.

"Tachyon surge," the Doctor muttered. "Just... need to... _ah._" His face cleared. "I beg your pardon, a touch of vertigo. Do you happen to know if anyone here is conducting time experiments?"

"Time experiments?" Vevik said. "How do you mean? The geriatric care center is adjacent to the hospital, sir, if that's what you seek."

"Probably not, but thanks all the same. How do you do? I'm the Doctor." He thrust out a hand.

"Why were you following us?" Turlough put in.

The young man pumped the Doctor's hand. "Vevik, homeopathy. I beg your pardon, Mr. Turlough, but I wondered if you might not have heard about Hydra Pharmaceutical's product trials at the campus center this afternoon. They are offering five thousand credits to volunteers."

"Splendid idea," the Doctor said. "There's a job fair taking place today, yes?"

"But, Doctor—" Turlough stared at him, incredulous. He noticed the Doctor's eyes fixed on an old-fashioned paper flyer pegged by magnets to the back wall of the elevator. _Terminus Medical Station, putting healing and care back into healthcare. Interns wanted._ "Oh. Oh, yes."

"Good lad. Vevik, I do appreciate your taking Turlough along. Don't let his mulishness fool you; a first-rate mind lurks beneath that sullen brow."

The medical student laughed. "I don't doubt it, sir." He gave Turlough a pleased, appraising glance.

Turlough raised an eyebrow and stared back. Was it his imagination, or was Vevik an unusually natty dresser among this philistine population? Unlike most of his peers, he eschewed coveralls for a neat linen jacket and well-pressed slacks.

The Doctor smiled at them, vaguely amused. "You'd better hurry. Five thousand credits is over a month's pay in this sector, yes?"

"Yes, sir, and two semesters' tuition! That is why I am spreading the good news."

"Lead the way, then," Turlough said. "I'm quite curious to learn what death-defying stupidity they want us to perform for our cheese."

"Meanwhile," the Doctor said to himself, jabbing a button at random as the elevator doors closed between him and the pair, "I have nine floors to search for a single leaky time experiment. Why didn't I bring my time tracer?"

* * *

If Nyssa had asked her to swan dive off a radio telescope, Tegan could not have been more flabbergasted. "Tackle the Master alone? Are you crazy? As bright ideas go, that's right up there with croc wrestling!"

"Tegan." Nyssa's words came out strained, monotone: she was struggling not to raise her voice. "That boy. It's Lasarti."

"Who—? Oh. _That'_s Lasarti?" Tegan gripped her shoulder. "Sit tight. You can count on me."

"I know I can." Nyssa gave her a tight smile. "Please be careful."

"I don't suppose you've brought a tyre spanner to lob at the Master's head? Right, here goes."

Looking both ways, Tegan squeezed through the hanging foliage and out to the exterior of the covered walkway, where there was a dark, narrow gap between the colonnade and the adjacent building. Wrinkling her nose at cobwebs, she began to edge her way down the claustrophobic slot. Stealth proved a challenge: dried leaves and detritus littered the gutter, and the growth outside the columns was unpruned. It took several minutes for her to draw near enough to make out voices. She clenched her teeth at unctuous tones she had hoped never to hear again.

"...shamefully exploiting a young man with rare potential simply because you lack family connections. But I serve a higher purpose: _knowledge_.In you, Lasarti, I see a fellow seeker. As your sponsor, I can supply you with the resources you need, provide access to academic institutions and their data. You will of course receive the top byline on any paper you publish."

"That's very decent of you, sir," the student said, "and I can't thank you enough. I'd probably be on a mono back home already, if you hadn't swooped in and defended me to the committee. But how _can_ I stick my name on the thing, when my original proposal's already in the pipeline under my department chair's name? I'd be accusing Dr. Vint Crane, president of the I.P.A., of cribbing from an undergraduate. Or, more to the point, proving the charge that landed me in hot water in the first place. I'm grateful that you believe me, Professor, but the fact is, I should be expelled by now. I don't really know why they listened to you."

"I may be able to reacquire your prototype from Dr. Crane discreetly, so that you would fall under no suspicion."

The boy shook his head. "Forgive me, sir, but you've no more chance of that than I have of free climbing the obelisk to change the beanie on Doctor Yi's statue."

"All will be arranged. Trust me, Lasarti. Serve me, and I can help you unlock the true secrets of dreams." The Master's voice began to take on a hypnotic resonance. "All the layers of the unconscious mind, the scars and forgotten shards of memory, open for your perusal..."

"Yeah, right," Tegan blurted from the shadows. "He's just gonna nobble your work like the last crook did." Turlough had compared her unfavorably to a crow with bronchitis, but in this case, the harsher the better.

Peering through the leaves, she saw the gangly young man blink and straighten. She shrank back as the Master swung around, but there was nowhere to hide. At least she could take satisfaction in the stunned irritation that crossed his face before he recovered his poise.

"Good heavens. Miss Jovanka, isn't it? Well, well, what an unexpected pleasure. Do come out and say hello."

"Don't patronize me," she said, pushing through the foliage and combing her hair with her fingers. Great. Just great. She was finally getting to meet the guy who'd married her best friend, and she had spider eggs in her bangs. "What are you doing here? Looking for slave labor among starving students, is that it?"

Lasarti's eyes darted between them, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

"I was merely offering this impressive young man my personal patronage."

"How do you do, Miss Jovanka," he said, extending his hand with an embarrassed grin. He looked to be about the same age as Nyssa had been when Tegan first met her. "Lasarti. Third year, psychology."

"Hi." She returned his handshake warmly. "It's really great to meet you. _You,_ on the other hand—" she turned and looked the Master in the eye— "Shove off."

Lasarti blanched in mid-handshake. "Er."

"Miss Jovanka," the Master said, all smiles, "I apologize that I was not able to accept your application, but I fear that you continue to confirm my doubts about your academic rigor, your ability to engage in reasoned debate, and, indeed, in your mental stability. If you persist in stalking me, I may regrettably have to summon campus security."

"You do that, Mr. Snake Oil," she said, folding her arms. "I'll wait right here."

"Or is it my new protegé you are stalking, perhaps?" he continued. "I'm not certain I should leave him alone with you. Just how do you come to know Lasarti?"

"Know him? We've only just met."

If the Master had hoped to cow her with his voice, he didn't have a chance to try. Suddenly, the building next to them erupted with an earsplitting din, magnified to a painful level by echoes chasing one another down the vaults of the arched walkway. Fire alarm, Tegan guessed, hunching her shoulders. She had a good idea who had pulled the lever.

"Morita Hall," Lasarti said. "That's my dorm!"

"Do not trouble yourself," the Master said. "A prank, no doubt."

"Pardon me, sir," he said. "I'm terribly grateful and... got to go. Your office hours— tomorrow— stop by—" He was already running.

Tegan threw herself forward, catching the Master behind one knee with a sharp kick that swept his legs out from under him as he turned to follow. "Oops!" she said, sprinting past him. "Sorry about that, Prof!"

Lasarti was a beanpole of a boy, angling between gaps in the students streaming out from the front doors of the building. "Oi!" one of them called. "Las, are you deaf?" He ignored him and the insistent wail of the alarm, disappearing inside and pelting up the stairs. Tegan trailed him doggedly, thanking the Doctor for a year of training in this department. Two flights, three— why did student residences never have a lift?— and he was hurrying along a hallway towards a door about halfway down, fumbling for a key card and darting inside.

Tegan followed on his heels, shutting the door behind her. The noise in here was only a little less deafening. His room was a narrow but neat single with a planter of blooming pod plants on the windowsill and several frosted glass orbs in the walls letting in extra light. There was only a moderate jumble of books, data chips, clothing and bric-a-brac, but a male student's pad would not be complete without at least one pair of underwear on the floor.

Lasarti sat down on these and peered under the shelf bed, moving slowly and carefully, ignoring the cacophony outside. In a soothing voice, he began to sing a playful, old-fashioned jingle that reminded Tegan of vaudeville showtunes.

_If I can't be the Jack of your heart  
__Then I guess I'll be a Joker  
__Because I like...  
__your...  
__smile..._

"Hey, that sounds like an Earth song," Tegan said, wondering idly what the TARDIS had translated into playing cards.

"Earth?" he said, distracted. "Is that a planet? Sounds awfully dry. Shh, Effie, come out, love, shh, it's all right. Come by, now." He hummed the tune again, wiggling his fingers under the edge of the bunk.

Something white and fluffy shot past his hands. Tegan dropped by instinct, making a grab as the bipedal, cat-eared furball banked off her shins.

"Whoa, little fella, I'm not gonna hurt ya," she coaxed. It squirted out of her grasp and spun around, hopping between Lasarti's legs and whisking under the bed. Tegan removed her heels and crouched beside him. "Have you got a carrier or something?"

He nodded, picked up his pillow, unzipped the cover and handed it to her. "Thanks. Here. Don't worry if she nips; she's been fully inoculated." On that not entirely reassuring note, he lay down on his side and resumed singing to the beady eyes peering out at him. At length, the small creature's snout edged out. Lasarti made a sweeping grab and cuddled the creature to his chest, coaxing and stroking before tipping it gently into the bottom of the bag. Tegan zipped it shut as the small animal began scrabbling at the fabric.

"There. Contrary to rumor, dust bunnies have not, in fact, formed a breeding colony in student housing." Reclaiming the wriggling satchel, he held it under his half-cloak. "Can you get the door, please?"

Tegan nodded, wincing as they stepped out into the blaring hallway. Lasarti had his hands full trying to keep hold of his small bundle. Tegan proceeded him down the stairs, partially shielding him from view. This was just as well. A janitor was blocking the bottom of the stairs, deactivating the fire alarm as they descended. The racket stopped just as they reached the first floor landing.

"Why are you two still in here?" the woman snapped. "The alarm's been ringing for ten minutes."

"Sorry, ma'am, we're just leaving." Lasarti had already turned to head back up the stairs.

"Don't bother." She waved a hand wearily. "False alarm. But next time it may not be. Word to the wise, kids, it's less embarrassing to run out onto the lawn in your bathrobes than to die of smoke inhalation stark naked and become a school legend. Good day."

Red-faced, Lasarti retreated just ahead of the surge of residents reentering through the front door. Tegan followed him back to his room, where he decanted the squirming creature onto the mattress. It hopped down and darted back under the bed.

"Er... well, thanks again, Miss Jovanka." His quizzical expression had returned.

"Glad to help," she said. "Wouldn't be the first violation of the housing policy I've had to rescue during a fire drill."

"So I gathered." He grinned, relaxing. "_Flagrant _Violation_,_ to be precise. Effie, elided form of 'F.V.' She might come out once the noise out there quiets down."

"Cute little thing. Looked like a powder puff crossed with a wallaby."

"A what? Is that an exospecies?"

"Never mind. Look, can we start over? You probably think I'm crazy, popping out of the bushes like that."

"Well, I was a little taken aback. Are you sure you haven't mixed up Daskalos with Dr. Crane?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you up front, though, I'm not any kind of student or scientist at all; I'm just a space tourist. Which sounds even more barmy, doesn't it? Anyway, that Daskalos guy has hurt a lot of people I really care about. I hate seeing him sink his claws into somebody else."

"Subjective realities, exhibit A." Lasarti's brows knitted. "Could you be a little more specific? No, wait. Look. I appreciate your going out of your way to tell me this, but I'm going to be late for lab. Naughty boy can't afford any more demerits on his report card. Could we meet for coffee afterwards?"

"Sure!" Tegan said, retrieving her shoes. "Where and when?"

"The Chiurgeon Cafe in an hour and a half?"

"Right! I'll see you then." She reached down to scratch the twitching nose peeking out from under the bed. "Hi to you, too, puffball. Stay put." Standing, she let herself out, blocking the door with her feet. She wondered whether a pet violation was grounds enough to get Lasarti expelled. It might be preferable to whatever the Master was planning.


	3. Three

"So, Turlough," Vevik said, charting a course between walkers, riders and rollers on the university's main service road with an ease that Turlough was appalled to find he could still manage, "What is your school, if I may ask?"

Turlough snorted. "Tegan was pulling your leg, I'm afraid. Or rather, mine. I was in Brendan School back on Earth, but I'm... well, let's just say I'm exploring other options. Of which I find plenty, traveling with the Doctor."

"Doctor." The young man frowned. "Of what? He spoke of time experiments, but I cannot think what he meant by that."

"Join the club. We were dropping off a friend here, when his instruments picked up some bizarre readings that should've come from a physics lab, not a medical research facility. The Doctor's trying to pinpoint the source. Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck until he's satisfied his scientific curiosity."

"So, you're not in medicine." Vevik drooped slightly. "But a student of sorts, you say?"

"Of sorts. Traveling with the Doctor, one learns all manner of things." Turlough said. "Like how many different ways the universe can kill you," he added under his breath.

"I beg your pardon? Ah, here we are!"

The student center, like the rest of the campus, was obviously built for a warm if rainy climate. The first floor was open on all four sides, providing access to a wide atrium, with rolled-up awnings that could be extended to cover outdoor seating in a downpour. Cafes and shops occupied the building's corners, with dining tables and benches spilling out into the lawns around it. Vevik guided Turlough through its beehive bustle into the building's interior, where booths and tables had been erected in gaps between support columns. Queues snaked to and fro, turning the spacious open area into a labyrinth. Vevik settled into the back of one of the longer lines.

"It looks like word of the five thousand has spread," he said, eyes twinkling. "I can hold our place, Turlough, if you would care to look around."

"Thanks," he said, privately cursing the Doctor for sending him on another boring reconnoiter. "I'll do that, if you don't mind."

He knew what the Doctor was worried about. If Terminus had sent representatives, there was a chance that Nyssa might run into herself. In fact, that might be the very reason she had been acting dodgy. Suspicious as Turlough was of everyone and everything, he had come to the wry conclusion that Nyssa had absolutely no capacity for scheming. There was something terribly out of joint when she started behaving like him.

He soon found himself falling into a walking torpor, lulled by glitzy holographic displays assaulting his senses from the booths of pharmaceutical and genetech corporations. Which of them, he wondered, had unleashed the virus that Nyssa was trying to eradicate? He had nearly abandoned his search when he spotted an out-of-the-way table staffed by a solitary young man fielding questions and waxing enthusiastic about patient care and intern opportunities. Elbowing his way to the front, Turlough found himself next to a pop-up booth decorated with simple 2D posters that had been lost amidst the commercial industry's high-end displays and kiosks. The table's surface offered a quaint spread of old-fashioned paper pamphlets and booklets describing recent changes to the Terminus medical facility. He almost expected to see a photocopied flier fringed with tear-off phone numbers.

Turlough selected a booklet at random and turned it over. Sure enough, the back cover featured a blurb and a photo of a smiling Nyssa, looking nearly as pretty and young as he remembered from their early encounters. _Little nun,_ he thought, remembering the Doctor's brutally honest barbs while under the Mara's influence. Close inspection, however, told a darker story. Image processors had done their best, but her deeply-shadowed eyes and gaunt cheeks suggested that her first years on Terminus had been difficult. Strange to think that this younger, haggard Nyssa was still out there somewhere.

"Excuse me," he said, interrupting a lively three-way conversation about the prospects of a Lazars vaccine, "Is Nyssa here today?"

The booth attendant's shoulders rose and fell in a resigned sigh before he donned a congenial smile. "The Director is on Terminus Station," he said. "I'm sure she'll be very pleased at your interest in our care facility and cutting-edge research_._"

Turlough laughed, divining the man's unspoken thought. "I'm not trying to get her autograph. She'd bite my head off. I'm one of her old chums who accidentally stranded her on Terminus. Good to see she's made the best of a bad job."

"I assure you, sir, that our station is an entirely different facility from the poorly-managed hospice you remember," the man said, sounding aggrieved. "It has been replaced with a _hospital._ Our patients receive one-on-one care, counseling and physical therapy—"

"And she's probably rescuing sick puppies and orphans on the side, making you wash behind the ears and grow organic bean sprouts. Yes, I know." Sensing he was overstaying his welcome, Turlough held up the pamphlet. "May I keep this?"

"Of course," the man said, looking harried. "If you'll excuse me, sir." He turned back to his audience. "The Director has gained a certain notoriety for her part in dismantling the former Terminus Corporation. Their paid attack journalists have painted an unflattering caricature. In fact, we have difficulty prying her out of the lab... What was your question again?"

_If it's no longer a leper disposal service, then why in blazes did you keep the name Terminus? _Turlough had never dared ask Nyssa, and he doubted he'd get a straight answer here.

He ambled back to rejoin Vevik in the queue, idly skimming the booklet. Tegan would probably be interested in the photos of the new facility: sterile and institutional, but at least the staff now looked like doctors rather than gladiators. Also, the skull decor had been replaced with art deco light panels, which to his eye was barely an improvement. The pamphlet concluded with a feel-good piece about the Garm, a creature rescued from the previous regime's deplorable conditions, who had become head of the children's ward. He wondered whether it minded having its doggy likeness used as a mascot.

"Terminus?" said Vevik. "Ah, that is a grim story. I have heard terrible rumors."

"Most of them years out of date, I suspect," Turlough said. "Intern pay's not too bad, for a starting stipend."

"That is odd," Vevik said. "I had heard that the employees were slaves in all but name." He peered at Nyssa's portrait. "Now, where have I seen this person before?"

"Maybe at a symposium," Turlough said vaguely.

"No, I recall it now; my father is an attorney, and he followed news of the case. She spoke for the prosecution."

"Speaking of trials... Vevik, this drug trial we're queuing for. What exactly are they paying us to do? Or ingest_,_ more to the point?"

"It is Stimsi," Vevik said. "Ah, they do not sell in your home system? Very popular among medical students; an alertness aid. But there is no need to worry, Turlough; there are no synthetic molecules; it is all refined from living materials."

"Ah, yes. 100% organic, just like arsenic and salmonella."

"Indeed," Vevik said, smiling. "You must have studied organic chemistry and its application to dining hall cuisine."

"I try not to," Turlough said. "So, assuming this all-new Stimsi doesn't kill us, I don't suppose you could recommend a decent cafe? I don't relish the thought of a school cafeteria."

"As to that," Vevik said, "If you would not think it forward, I would be most pleased to invite you—"

A woman's voice over a loudspeaker cut through the hubbub. "Welcome, welcome, to Hydra Pharmaceuticals' Stimsi Challenge! Step right this way, to discover the new great taste that turns nutrient paste into Orion ambrosia!"

Turlough groaned. "A vegemite taste-test? Slay me now." He suffered himself to be herded along with Vevik into a roped-off area. His spirits brightened again when he realized that the chairs and small tables were interspersed with putrid outcroppings of modern art and potted shrubbery. There were plenty of discreet hiding places in which to dump unknown substances without being observed.

Five thousand credits were, after all, five thousand credits. He hoped he would have time to get them converted and uploaded to his secret account before they left this planet. For all the aggravations of traveling with the Doctor, compound interest — when they were on civilized planets that recognized his financial records – made the risks worthwhile.

* * *

Nyssa slipped out the back door of Morita Hall and plunged headlong into the chaotic flow of students for camouflage. The confidence of a campus native made it easier to blend in. Nevertheless, she drew a few puzzled looks as she forded the crush. It was hardly customary for a faculty member to be kitted for deep space exploration. She needed to stop by the TARDIS and change before she drew the attention of unfriendly eyes, or even friendly ones. First, however, she had to find Tegan and make certain she was safe.

Circling the building, she emerged into the sundial quad from a different direction and began scanning for familiar gaits. Lasarti, she hoped, would be in his room securing the ridiculous pet that he had smuggled through Terminus' quarantine six months before she discovered it. She dared not let him catch sight of her. There was no telling what might happen if they met now, a year too early and with decades of living etched upon her skin.

"Excuse me, ma'am, are you lost?" called an orderly supporting a frail-looking patient.

"I'm fine, thank you, Sar-Ngin," Nyssa said. "Have you seen a young woman pass this way? Offworlder clothes, short-cropped hair, shoes with heels raised on points."

S/he blinked at being hailed by name. "I haven't noticed any such person, but I haven't been paying much attention to the students. Mz. Rotisan, did you see this offworlder?"

"Kids these days," the patient wheezed. "Traipsin' about in spacesuits like Captain Zoom. Where's your helmet, then?"

"Thank you very much," Nyssa said. "Good day, Ngin."

There was no sign of Tegan. After pacing the perimeter of the quadrangle three times, Nyssa warily returned to the sheltered walkway where they had parted. No sign there, either. Her attire was drawing more curious glances; a pair of students walking along the covered path were whispering to one another and avoiding her eyes. She gave them a curt nod, slowing her steps until they had passed. She was just about to duck into the vine-choked archway where she had taken refuge earlier when the figure she had been dreading stepped out from it. She recoiled, but it was too late.

"Nyssa." The Master spread his arms, a welcoming gesture that made her heart ache. Not only his face and voice, but his every movement was a grotesque pantomime of her late father. "Nyssa, my dear child, it's been too long. Let me see you!"

"Stay away," she said. "In fact, you should leave Zarat at once." She palmed a small capsule from the wrist-guard of her suit, making no attempt to conceal her movements. "You don't belong here."

"So inhospitable, my dear, and to your own flesh and blood. I fear the Doctor's influence has begun to taint your natural sweetness." He frowned as he came forward. "Goodness me. What has he done to you? Time travel has not been kind to you, my dear."

Her age, she realized, mystified him; he had last seen her traveling with the Doctor and Tegan as a precocious teenager. "You're trying to pretend that you're not responsible for the tachyon surge we passed through on the way here?"

"Tachyon surge? I don't know what you're talking about." His musical voice took on a sudden insistence like a whipcrack. "Where is the Doctor?"

"I don't know." Even braced for it, she found herself struggling not to give a straight answer. "Playing cricket, I expect."

"Obstinacy does not suit you, my dear, any more than time's ravages."

She gave him a contemptuous look. Her real father had always been proud of her stubbornness, even when it was arrayed against him.

"Come, come. This is no fit place for a reunion. Why don't you accompany me back to my office? I'd be delighted to introduce you to my new protegé, Lasarti." His scrutiny and voice sharpened. "Come, Nyssa. You will obey... you _yearn_ to obey me, daughter..."

The effort of blocking out mental commands made it harder to guard facial expressions, and she clenched her jaw when he purred Lasarti's name. The Master's eyes glinted with a hint of triumph. He still looked puzzled, but there was a cunning calculation in his eyes now that she disliked.

"Leave Zarat," she said again. "I can expose what you're doing here. Or resort to less civil means if I must. That body you're wearing is vulnerable. And there are some pathogens that can overcome even Gallifreyan immunity. Spectrox, for example...?" Oh, it ached to know that.

"Why, my little flower has developed thorns," he said, laughing. "Leave Zarat? You are the intruder, while I am a distinguished adjunct faculty member. Perhaps I should summon security and have you questioned for terrorist threats. No, better, I've been looking for volunteers to test Lasarti's dream interface. Shall we walk together in a vision of vanished Traken— oh, yes, _you_ belong here, Nyssa, among the cloying scent of flowers, the decency, the lassitude— or will you yield to me the secrets that your dear Doctor has shown you since you left my side?"

"You... you were Professor Crane." She spoke with difficulty, holding onto anger for Lasarti's sake as a talisman against that cruel, seductive voice. "He never existed. And now that his theft is about to be exposed, you've changed identities again."

"Don't be silly, girl, of course he existed. His mirroring-therapy android has proved quite invaluable to me." His smile was cold. "No doubt Dr. Crane will have much to answer for, if he ever returns from his... extended sabbatical."

Nyssa shuddered inwardly. She felt no charity towards the man who had nearly ruined Lasarti's career before it had even started, but all the same, she had no wish for anyone else to die at the Master's hands. "As will you."

"So..." the Master said, taking another step closer. "You know about the late Vint Crane, do you? Then I suppose you and Lasarti must also be acquainted. _Intimately_ acquainted."

She suppressed a wild urge to strike him. "Stay away from him_._"

"What, and miss the chance to meet my grandchildren?"

He was goading her, stoking her anger until it became not a defense but a wedge to cut through mental barriers. Her focus was beginning to blur, fear and fury chasing themselves around her brain. _Not Neeka. Not Adric. _In her mind's eye, she beheld a captivating image of her beaming father with his hands resting upon her children's shoulders. Their young, upturned faces tilted towards him in glowing devotion. "_No!"_

The Master blanched as if her furious mental shout had scored a hit. And then, faintly, she heard another calling her.

_Nyssa? Nyssa, Nyssa, help me..._

The vision changed: her father was huddled on his side in a colorless void, his face contorted in an anguished appeal._ Please, take my hand... Nyssa, I know you are there..._

It was Tremas' voice, weak with fatigue and horror and hopelessness, a feeble plea reaching out to her from across an infinite chasm of time and space. She took an involuntary step forward. Every straining fiber of her soul yearned to answer. Her father's doubled features — aged and despairing, sleek and exultant — swam before her eyes. Gloved fingers began to steal around her wrist.


	4. Four

Nyssa had just enough willpower left to snap the capsule, fling it to the ground and whirl away as the flare went off. There was a silent flash. The entire length of the arcade was lit in a searing white light. Shrieks and a few curses burst out from somewhere beyond the Master: a few unlucky bystanders must have gotten caught in the glare. _No permanent retinal damage,_ the tiny rational corner of her brain reminded her. _Don't look back._

She ran. There was no help for it this time. Heads began to turn as soon as she sprinted back into the open lawn. She did at least have the presence of mind not to head straight for the TARDIS, but to detour behind another building. Instinct and adrenaline took over. She was fleeing towards her laboratory, even though it would be another ten years before its foundations were laid. She wove between trees, bypassing pedestrian-clogged walkways and listening for the sound of pursuing footsteps.

There. A comforting swatch of beige and red. She veered towards it and did not slow down, feeling a childish stab of relief as the Doctor's arms swept around her. Laughter came a moment later, as she had to catch him before they both tumbled to the pavement.

"Nyssa!" He swung her behind him, staring past her. "What's wrong?"

"Someone... recognized me," she said. "Had to get away before... temporal paradox..." Her thoughts were scattering like Tegan's rabbits. Her very _brain_ felt quivery, disoriented and flailing like a bird trying to free itself from netting. Lasarti's voice rose and fell in the back of her mind, reassuringly professional. _Mental assault, subjectively the same as physical... often a delayed response... perfectly normal, while the unconscious assimilates the trauma..._ She closed her eyes and propped her forehead against the Doctor's cricket jumper, trying to shake off the jangling horror of the Master's last words. The scent of celery was comfortingly familiar, if peculiar.

"Steady." The Doctor gathered her gently and guided her towards the nearest tree, helping her to sit with her back against it. "Deep breaths. Are you being followed?"

"I don't think so," she said, letting her face drop into her hands. Little by little, ordinary sounds and scents came back to her. A kit-bird's call. The susurrus of needles rustling on the light breeze. A faint whiff of camomile and thyme, small creeping flowers crushed underfoot by students taking shortcuts. Chattering voices, the quick crunching footsteps of cross-campus trots as undergraduates hurried between classes. _Home._

She let out a puff of breath. "Thank you, Doctor. I'm all right, really. Blinovitch Effect. I had no idea it would be so disorienting."

"Hm." His wry smile was fond. "Despite my corrupting influence, Nyssa, you've never gained the faculty to lie convincingly."

"I said I'm fine. Just... I need a moment."

The Doctor folded his arms across his knees, waiting in a crouch beside her. As she struggled to find something to tell him that would not simply raise more questions, he launched into amiable patter. "You know, the Seneb medical academy on Zarat is really quite a remarkable institution: green spaces, more trees than bins, medicinal herbs in the lawns, pavements to filter and recycle rainwater, and not a single architectural monstrosity apart from those lifts over there that resemble garbage pods. The atmosphere reminds me of the ancient healing sanctuary of Epidauros on Earth. The sound of wind through evergreens is quite characteristic. And there's a sea a few miles off, isn't there? I can see why you relocated here."

She raised her head, troubled. "Doctor–"

"I think it's time we left off pretending, Nyssa," he said, giving her a level look. "You didn't want me to know where you were going, and a powerful force tried to stop the TARDIS from bringing you here. Now someone's attacked you. It all adds up to the same thing. You must tell me what."

"But it doesn't. At least, not that I can see. And I would never have brought you if I'd realized the danger." She felt like a pawn deeply embedded on the far side of a chessboard, hemmed in by a shrinking noose. If only she could confide in him! But if she did, the Doctor would surely go charging off to challenge his old nemesis. Then it was a simple matter of the Master planting Lasarti in his path, so that they met now instead of in the Doctor's dying dreams, and the timestream would be altered. Would such a small change be enough to jeopardize his regeneration? She didn't know, and she dared not ask. Somehow, she and Tegan must queen themselves and castle the Doctor before he was checkmated.

"What danger? Nyssa, you have to tell me." His voice was soothing, insistent.

"Don't _you_ start. I've had quite enough people trying to get inside my head for one day!"

He rocked back on his heels, forehead knitting in deepening concern. "I think we ought to get you back to the TARDIS."

"Yes, I... I need to collect some things. Doctor, I'm sorry." She stretched her hand towards him in apology. "After all the psychic attacks I weathered while traveling with you before, something like this ought not to faze me."

"Fifty years is a long time; I don't suppose you've had much cause to practice the meditation techniques I taught you." He took the gesture for a mute request. As he lifted her to her feet, his fingers suddenly tightened under her elbow. "The Master. It's the Master, isn't it?"

She couldn't lie, not about this. Still she hesitated.

"Isn't it? For goodness' sake, Nyssa, stop fighting me!"

"Yes." Eyes downcast, she allowed him to begin leading her towards the TARDIS. "Posing as a professor."

"And you thought to shield me." He raised his eyes skyward. "Sometimes I wish you all had Turlough's sense of self-preservation. Where's Tegan?"

"Safe, for the moment. She's with my– with a colleague of mine. She's on her guard. What about Turlough?"

"Student center, some kind of job fair. You didn't come here recruiting on this date, did you?"

Startled by the mundane question, she considered for a moment, then shook her head. "No, I'm still mired in paperwork back on Terminus."

"Good." He marched faster as his mental wheels turned. "The tachyon emissions seem to be coming from underground, presumably somewhere in that biohazardous research complex. What's the Master's involvement? Did he drop any hints?"

"I'm not certain. When I challenged him, he claimed not to know anything about a tachyon explosion. I almost think he was telling the truth. All I know is that he is taking a very personal interest in my past."

"Then the sooner you're safely inside the TARDIS, the better."

Spotting the blue door peeping through the trees ahead of them, Nyssa slowed. "Doctor, wait. I've been less than frank with you, because there's something in my own past that impacts your future. Every moment we're here, we risk altering that timeline by setting up a contradiction. It could threaten your very existence. That's what the Master is after; I'm sure of it."

"A temporal paradox?" The Doctor relaxed, despite the dire warning. "Well, now, that makes things somewhat clearer. I was trying not to be offended at your attempts to give us the slip."

"It's not how I wished to leave. But I didn't know what else to do."

"If I weren't peeved at being left in the dark, I'd applaud you for a Time Lord's discretion." He sighed. "So, what do you suggest? Leave Zarat to avoid playing into his hands? We may be able to bypass the brunt of the distortion by going further back in time, or sideways, as you pointed out."

"No!" She wrestled fear aside. _Lasarti, Neeka, Adric– _she might be a pawn, but at least she was aware of the chessboard. "No. Leaving won't stop him. I must do that. Tegan's helping me."

"Tegan!" The Doctor pulled up short, voice rising an octave as his temper began to fray. "_Tegan?_ That is utterly out of the question. You of all people should have more sense! Whatever he did to you–"

"Mind control. He failed. Doctor, I _can_ defend myself."

"And Tegan?"

"Maybe you underestimate her." Nyssa squared her shoulders. "Look, I'm not happy about bringing her into this, but you know the Master prefers to prey on isolated victims. She isn't alone. And I'm going back to join her, just as soon as I've collected a few things that may help." She looked up. "Believe me, I'm not taking this lightly. He terrifies me. But one of us has to stop him, and this time you can't, so I must."

They had reached the TARDIS door, where he halted and turned to loom over her, expression stark. "Nyssa, not to put too fine a point on it, _you cannot regenerate_."

"We're of more use to him alive than dead." She recognized the shadow that had fallen across him; she had named her son for the same ghost. Feeling oddly maternal, she reached up and brushed a stray lock out of the Doctor's eyes. "And regenerations can fail."

His expression went blank. "Ah." Propping his arm against the TARDIS doorframe for support, he raised his head and gazed out through the trees, visibly collecting himself. "I deeply appreciate what you're trying to do, Nyssa, but you cannot change history."

"No! Oh, Doctor, that's not what I meant. _He's _the one trying to change it. He's the one who wouldn't care if he triggered a temporal paradox while altering–" she closed her eyes, remembering her final glimpse of the Doctor's shining, dying body as he fell into the ghostly husk of the Watcher– "what must be. And for what it is worth, it's not only your future in the balance." She felt the chill truth of those words as she spoke them. If the Master could not suborn Lasarti to his own ends, the easiest way to stop her from using her husband's machine to aid the Doctor was to eliminate its inventor. "Please. We're both walking a very delicate line, but at least I know the future's proper course. I'll do my best to hold it steady. You can't, not unless I tell you your own future, and that in itself may initiate the paradox."

The Doctor lapsed into silence. She heard the soft click of the key in the lock. She opened her eyes to find him looking down at her with an unfathomable expression.

"Sometimes I wish you had two hearts," he said. "But you do, don't you? The other is Tegan. You'd best be getting back to her. While I... continue hunting for temporal anomalies. Are you sure you don't remember any unexplained happenings in the BHR Center?"

"No... wait, there was something." She glanced over her shoulder. "My virology lab was installed in a space formerly occupied by cryonics R&D. I don't know the details, but I gather they were shut down after some kind of industrial accident."

"Frozen time... of _course_." He leapt into motion. "That's it! Nyssa, look after Tegan. I expect to find both of you back here safe and sound." He was already striding away, preoccupied, steps purposeful, all but running now that he had a bearing to pursue.

"I promise," she called, smiling faintly at his abrupt exit. She caught the door before it could close and hurried inside.

Entering the flight deck, she picked up her medical containment cube and took it with her to the TARDIS wardrobe. For once, she had too much on her mind to be distracted by browsing. There were a few nondescript coveralls and short cloaks that would blend in well with casual campus attire. She was not sanguine about shedding the minor protections offered by her scout suit, but biohazard film and light armor were of little use against the Master's modes of attack.

Next, exigency trumping etiquette, she ventured into the Doctor's room to borrow the little Mind's Eye he had picked up as a replacement before they left Manussa. The blue crystal pendant was still lying on the shelf where he had tossed it. It was meant as a focus for deep trance and dream-states, but it might aid the mind's resistance, at least a little.

She was wasting time. There was no telling what the Master might have done to Tegan by now if she had been caught. Nevertheless, Nyssa made a quick trip to the ship's lab to drop off the antigen container and collect an ion bonder. Back on Traken, she had discovered by accident how to miscalibrate the tool so as to create an effective stun beam at close range. Unlike the Doctor, she had no compunctions about arming herself with nonlethal weapons, although she generally honored his wishes in that regard.

Not this time. Not with every single person who was precious to her under threat.

She nearly crashed into Turlough slouched against the outside door. He grabbed her by the shoulders, releasing her just as quickly. He had always been a little skittish in her presence, even when she was young. "There you are! I've been trying to find you. Bad enough when _he_ runs off–"

"Turlough, I'm sorry, but I'm in rather a hurry."

"Fine, fine," he said. "I'll just toss out this suspiciously free product sample of some unknown chemical substance, then, shall I? Someone's handing them out at the campus center by the crateful. I'm sure it's nothing important." He dangled a foil blister pack between his fingers.

She glanced at the small packet. "Stimsi? It's a synthetic caffeine enantiomer. A common supplement among nurses and researchers."

"Ah, that explains why some pharmaceutical megacorp is offering them _five thousand credits_ for a taste test."

"What? But that's like paying humans to drink alcohol!"

"Exactly." He held it up, reading out the label. "'_STIMSI SWEET,_ a new great taste for gel or paste.' It's been reformulated to make nutrient drinks taste palatable, or so the promoters claimed. I wouldn't know. I prefer not to imbibe green glow-in-the-dark ectoplasm."

"They were adding this to _hydromel_?" She took the blister pack, frowning. "I really must go, but I'll run an analysis on this as soon as I can. Thank you, Turlough."

"Hey," he said. "I don't suppose you know where the Doctor's gone?"

"He's investigating the cryonics lab." She pointed. "Turn left as you exit the TARDIS, and–"

"All right." Turlough waved her off. "That underground bunker, correct? I hope you had a sound reason for dragging us here, Nyssa; wandering around alien school grounds is precisely not my idea of a good time."


	5. Five

The Doctor, meanwhile, had retraced his steps to the biohazardous research facility. Below ground, it was a soulless science warren like any other, although some designer had tried to ameliorate harsh lighting and putty-colored walls with sealed panels of falling water and the occasional light well terrarium. Heavy bulkhead doors lurking in the joints between corridors hinted at robust quarantine procedures. Threading his way through the maze, he eavesdropped on snatches of conversation and scanned bulletin boards to take the vital signs of a thriving, well-funded research center. At first glance, there were no obvious warning signs of megalomaniac researchers, but he knew better than to take Nyssa's presence as a foolproof indicator of scientific integrity.

Eventually he reached a pair of doors with pneumatic hinges and tight seals. They hissed open in response to a hand-activated motion sensor. Warm, slightly moist air lifted his hair. The Doctor stepped through and descended a shallow metal ramp to the floor of a large, hangar-like chamber.

The ambient temperature in the laboratory was warmer than the rest of the building, despite the banks of air conditioning vents and ductwork in the exposed ceiling. Against the left-hand wall was a row of opaque glass columns, etched with rime on the outside. More tanks of various sizes and shapes were scattered in organized islands around the floor. The right-hand side of the room was spanned by a long counter partitioned into desks, computer panes, shelves, bins of electronic oddments, and tool racks. Two workstations were occupied by a pair of students, a girl and a youth of indeterminate gender, engrossed in tables of figures flowing past on large glass displays. The far end of the room was entirely occupied by metal scaffolding holding a web of cables flowing into and around a stout gray metal canister, belt-high, banded by hoops of some dense, dark, polished material that sparkled like volcanic basalt. Perched on a stepstool next to it was a dumpy, middle-aged woman, adjusting one of the bewildering array of connectors and dials attached to the sides of the device. To judge by her intermittent swearing, the procedure was not going smoothly.

The Doctor began to explore, footsteps masked by the whirr of fans and machinery. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he rubbed away frozen condensation from a nearby cryo-tank and peered inside, raised his eyebrows and meandered on, perusing whatever notes, diagrams and scribbles were lying on work surfaces or pinned to walls and equipment.

The nearest student gave a sudden yelp and turned, startled by the Doctor's moving reflection on hir workstation's glass screen. "Professor Xertes! A visitor."

"How do you do?" the Doctor said, doffing his hat. "I'm the Doctor."

"_The _Doctor? Is that supposed to be a joke?" the girl at the other terminal said, not looking up from her figures.

There was a curse and a crackling pop from the far end of the room. The Doctor's smile turned sickly for a split second as he reached for the nearest stable surface to steady himself.

"Who the devil are you, and what are you doing in my laboratory?" bellowed the professor. She made another minute adjustment with a needle-nosed tool and snapped the access panel closed. "Doctor of what? Trespassing?"

"Among other things," he said, walking towards her and beaming affably. "I beg your pardon, but my curiosity was piqued when I heard that a cryonics expert at a medical research academy was moonlighting as a temporal physicist."

"Does this Doctor of Snooping have a name? An accredited institution? A shred of identification?" Xertes' voice rattled around the room like the percussive sounds of an ancient magnetic resonance scanner. Perhaps she was accustomed to shouting over the din of noisy machinery.

"Doctor John Smith," he said. "Academy of Gallifrey, although it's been some time since— _ow._" He winced and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I say, can you check the alignment on your tachyon beam collimator? I'm afraid you may have some leakage."

"_Gallifrey?_" She stood up at once, smoothing back tufts of salt-and-pepper hair and staring at him. "Shards, that's all we need. Hathli, Chrys, save and shut down. I'll see you tomorrow, first period."

"But, Professor Xertes—"

"Immediately, please," she said. "I need to speak to this man alone."

"Yes, Professor." The young people gave him curious looks as they blanked their screens and filed out. The Doctor nodded pleasantly to them as he drifted towards the intimidating-looking scaffolding.

"Now, Jonsmith," Xertes said, following her graduate students as far as the door and sealing it behind them, "I'll bid you a hearty welcome if you're here to observe or assist. But I doubt it."

"Just Doctor, if you don't mind," he said. "And the Time Lords didn't send me, I can assure you. I'm an independent, so to speak."

"Independent?" She snorted. "From what little I've been able to uncover of those secretive bastards, the Time Lords exercise their ability to traverse all time and space by sitting on their desiccated posteriors and presenting a stiflingly united front. I made the mistake of trying to contact Gallifrey ten years ago, seeking a scientific exchange."

"Oh," he said, with some sympathy.

"Oh indeed. By the time I'd returned from the hyperspace communication center, all my notes had vanished along with my original mock-up of that." She gestured towards the squat drum occupying pride of place. "It's taken me eight years to recover."

"They can be rather protective of space-time integrity," he said, with an apologetic bow.

"It's called a corporate monopoly. And I have not the slightest interest in time travel; all I'm trying to do is come up with an alternative to long-term suspended animation that doesn't degrade tissue."

"A stasis field generator." He gestured towards the device. "May I see it?"

"First tell me what you're doing here."

"Well, as I was saying, your device's shielding may be compromised. I crashed through a violent temporal distortion on my way here. Something is releasing vast amounts of tachyons into the time vortex. Is there anyone else on Zarat engaged in time experiments?"

"Not that I know of." Her eyes narrowed. "All right, be my guest. But if you try to tamper with anything—"

"Yes, I do understand."

Tense and skeptical, she monitored his every move as he climbed around the scaffold, poking, sniffing, yanking a finger back after contacting live current, and dropping to one knee to examine the manifold at the base of the canister. Finally, laying a hand across the top of the machine, he stared off into the distance in pensive contemplation.

"Well?" she said at last. "Assessment?"

"What? Oh, quite brilliant." He tapped one of the dense hoops encircling the main drum. "Dwarfstar alloy. You were originally trying to dilate time with a localized gravity field."

She shrugged. "Gravitic containment is proven technology for a wide range of nano-applications."

"But it's not an ideal environment for larger biological samples, is it?"

"Most organisms do not hold up well to having their extremities disarticulated, no. And there's the mass problem."

"So. You've shifted to an entirely different approach, bleeding off energy not to freeze particles of matter in a near-motionless state—" he flapped a hand towards the cryonic tanks around the rest of the room— "but to impede the natural flow of time, yes?"

"An oversimplification, but yes," she said.

"Which is why Gallifrey interfered. You're dumping tachyon energy directly into the time vortex, right out of this universe. Entropy's frightfully efficient; it doesn't need an assist."

"The net loss is virtually nil compared to the total energy of the universe."

"Quite, quite, but as soon as everyone starts clamoring for their own eternal veggie drawer, we'll be facing universal energy shortages." He raised his hands to forestall her next retort. "But I'm not here to quibble about that. No, I'm afraid your project is facing a more immediate problem. Two, in fact."

She folded her arms with a jaundiced look. "Here it comes."

"One, your device is bleeding off energy into the time vortex, but not quickly enough. I've detected a few tachyon micro-bursts leaking into the space-time continuum. Which brings us to the secondary problem."

"Side effects including nausea or headaches for time travelling busybodies?" she said acidly.

"Well," he said, "You've essentially dammed time without providing a sufficient outlet. What you've built is not so much a stasis field as a time compressor. The spatial equivalent would be a diamond anvil squashing a planet down to the size of a gerbil. Sooner or later, something is going to give."

"But that's impossible." She nodded towards the empty desks. "Hathli has modeled the space-time stresses to sixteen dimensions."

"Ah, well, that's the trouble with transdimensional equations; unless you set an arbitrary stopping point, they tend to go iterating off into infinity or tangling themselves up into a hopeless ball of string."

"And what do you suggest?"

"I'm afraid I recommend abandoning this line of research. Triggering a temporal nova would be something to add to your name, posthumously, but the health risks to the people of this planet rather outweigh the benefits."

"Well, if that's how it has to be." She reached down and jerked a dial on the top panel.

"Ah." The Doctor grimaced, pressing his thumb and forefinger against the corners of his eyes. "In the spirit of friendly scientific discourse, that's not exactly cricket."

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave my laboratory," she said. "If you'd like to discuss methods for refining the machine, my office hours are tomorrow, first period. I will of course be most grateful for the input of an expert in the field. However, I'm not about to let another ten years of work be erased because some self-proclaimed advanced civilization wants to keep the invention of fire all to itself."

"Could you just—" he said, waving a hand feebly towards the machine.

"Out," she said. "Or I'll use _you _to measure the tachyon leakage that you claim is eluding my instruments."

* * *

With a spreading grin, Tegan was listening to Lasarti as he waved his hands about, rapping the outdoor table with a thumb to punctuate his words.

"...And that was when it came to me: _the mind is its own therapist_! Dreams unlock the mental attic, letting us integrate the most recent day's experiences with our past. Dreams close it up again, too, putting away feelings and memories we don't need or aren't yet ready to face. But it's all so messy and random. So, what if we could create a lucid dreaming device that let us dream _and_ be conscious, have a say in the processes of integration, recall and occlusion? And what if a trained therapist could tag along as a guide—" Lasarti broke off, looking over his coffee at Tegan. "Whoops, sorry. I'm getting carried away."

"Hey, don't apologize; it's fun watching you get airborne." Tegan took another sip of her drink, surreptitiously inspecting this animated young man whom her best friend had married. With his dark olive complexion, gangly limbs, round cheeks and shoulder-length mop of black ringlets, he looked like a nerdy Greek wine god crossed with Mr. Squiggle. Minus the pencil. "Anyway, what you're doing sounds fascinating. I've never even heard of psychometrics."

He pulled a face. "I'm not doing it, though, am I? Crane's got my prototype stashed away, and he's off on sabbatical. I can't even try to recreate it, not with his name on _my_ proposal, sitting in the I.P.A. queue waiting for peer review."

"You'll find a way. Sooner or later, the truth's got to come out, right?"

That set off a rolling laugh. "You really aren't a scientist, are you? The annals of history are backfilled with footnotes: _oh, by the way, the chap who invented the hyperspace transmitter? Didn't. His research assistant never got credit for it during her own lifetime._" Shrugging, he flicked a hand away. "But that's beside the point. The machine's not really mine nor Dr. Crane's; it belongs to everybody it might help. There's people out there whose minds are fighting them because of trauma, abuse, or just a way of being that doesn't mesh with the arbitrary patterns of our society. I want to help them help themselves. It may take me decades to get the oneirometer safe enough for routine therapy, and there's ethical issues to sort through. But right now, I can't even get started. It's maddening."

"Lasarti, you keep going round and round like that, and you'll drive yourself round the twist. Stick to what you can do for now, and keep your eyes peeled for doors in odd places. You'd be surprised what's out there." Her eyes crinkled. The Master was a rum stroke of luck, but at least Lasarti was probably safe from balky time machines masquerading as police boxes.

"But that's just what I'm doing," he said. "Professor Daskalos has offered to sponsor me. Without family connections—"

Tegan snorted. "That man? Please. He just wants to get his hands on your prototype."

"And now we're back to incompatible subjective realities." Lasarti gave her a wry grin. "Miss Jovanka, not to be rude, but why should I believe you? You're asking me to toss out everything I know about Professor Daskalos, and yet you can't even tell me any details about what he's supposed to have done."

"What _hasn't_ he done?" Tegan frowned. Where to start? Not Aunt Vanessa. That was too painful to talk about, and anyway, Lasarti's credulity was strained enough without her bringing up magical shrinking death rays. "I don't suppose you've ever heard of a place called Traken?"

"Traken. I... I think I've read the name in a history file somewhere, why?"

"Tell you a story. A fairy tale, except it all went balls up in the end. Once upon a time, there was a Planet of Insufferably Nice People. Gardens everywhere, advanced technology, no violence, no disease — paradise, if your idea of a good time was rewiring electronics or weeding. Until one day, your Daskalos wormed his way into their ruling council and seized control of the device that kept their world safe. Nowadays, you can't even find Traken on a star chart. An old friend of mine—" she chose her words with care— "was born there, and she saw it all happen. And the worst of it? All this business of getting inside people's heads? Daskalos did that to _her father._ Wiped her Dad clean away, poof, and took over his body."

Lasarti choked on the last of his coffee. "You're having me on," he said. He studied her strained expression. "You're _not_ having me on," he amended, dubious.

"Cross my heart. I've seen him use gadgets to control people's minds."_ And ones that can shrink you down to the size of that coffee cup, _she thought grimly.

"But that's not possible." He nibbled absently on the rim of his paper cup. "Hypnosis doesn't work like that. You can't hypnotize someone who's actively resisting."

"Are you absolutely sure about that?" Tegan said. "What about this oneirometer of yours, letting shrinks go in and muck about in people's heads?"

"That's not how it works." He looked uneasy. "And you still haven't given me anything but anecdotal evidence."

"Look, the only solid evidence you're going to get is if he does it to _you_. And by then it'll be too late!" Tegan's voice rose in frustration.

He pursed his lips. "Well, there's a certain logic in that. But I'm still curious why you seem to care so much. You're not from Zarat; how could you even know about me?"

"I didn't. I just saw Daskalos pulling his usual con job, and I had to get involved."

He shook his head. "Sorry, but I don't buy it. You _are_ stalking me. It's wigging me out a bit, although you're being terribly nice about it."

"Would it sound better or worse if I said I don't give a damn about you; I just want to stick it to _him_?"

"The funny thing is, I don't believe that either. You really are _worried_ about me. Who are you, Miss Jovanka, and who made you my guardian angel?"

"I told you. I'm just a space tourist, you know, wandering the galaxy, seeing the sights, learning how people live on different planets." She gave him a bright smile, wishing that the TARDIS came with cabin crew training seminars to teach one how to deal with unruly time paradoxes. "'Travel broadens the mind,' and all that. All I can tell you is this: you've got family you don't know you have, and one of 'em asked me to do you a good turn if I ever bumped into you. But I can't say who, so don't ask."

He threw his hands up in exasperation. "Now, honestly. You can't drop a thing like that on a chap without explaining."

"I'm sorry, Lasarti. Really, I wish I could. But I am telling you the truth."

"You believe what you say, at any rate." He leaned back, contemplating the multicolored lanterns strung high above the main thoroughfare like aerial gourds. Finally, he pushed back his chair. "Well, this has all been quite... er, maybe not quite so illuminating, but certainly eye-opening. Now I think it's time I took your advice and stopped going in circles, which is precisely what this conversation's doing. Thanks awfully for an unusual afternoon; you've given me a lot to think about."

"Lasarti—"

"I said I'll think about it, all right? See you around." He winked as he stood. "Maybe I'll see you at Professor Daskalos' hypnosis seminar, first period tomorrow."

"Oh, that'll be a barrel of laughs." Tegan stood up to shake hands, but he was already gone, cutting a hasty retreat between tables and chairs like a skilled pilot navigating a reef. "Me and my blabbermouth. Why did I have to go and mention Traken?" At a loss, she started to trail after him, just in case the Master was lurking around some dark corner waiting to pounce again. That canker sore was nowhere to be seen. However, the instant Lasarti exited the outdoor cafe, Nyssa popped her head out from behind a nearby ivy-covered partition, made eye contact and nipped out of sight again. Tegan cut across to join her in the secluded booth. "Whew! I was just beginning to wonder how long you wanted me on the job. Should I follow him?"

"No, no, it's all right. Thank you so much, Tegan." Some of the drawn lines of Nyssa's face eased as her human friend hurried over.

"Hey, like I'd pass up a chance to snoop on the life you've been too shy to tell me about." Tegan bumped her shoulder with light knuckles. "So, what've you been up to besides tugging fire alarms? I couldn't find you. And what's this for?" She nodded at the sonic screwdriver-sized tool in Nyssa's hand. The bottom was uncapped, as if she had been tinkering with its innards before Tegan came over.

"Remember the instrument I used to build the Zero Cabinet?"

"What? No, sorry, if it's in the TARDIS and it's blinking, I leave it to you and the Doc." Tegan plopped onto the bench beside her, nudging her to scoot over. "Don't tell me, you're going to make another Zero Cabinet and stuff the Master inside. I'll just fetch a toilet plunger, shall I?"

Nyssa actually laughed. "I'm afraid not, although the idea has a certain appeal. An ion bonder is a tool for attaching and detaching molecular bonds. I discovered a long time ago that it can also deliver a nasty shock, if miscalibrated."

"So?" Tegan's eyes narrowed, watching as she manipulated a row of tiny switches inside it with the toothpick end of a drink umbrella. "Hang on. I thought I told you not to tackle the Master alone."

"I would have preferred not to, believe me." Turning away, Nyssa took surreptitious aim at the wall in the back of the booth. There was a faint green beam, a pop, and a jolt under them as if a sledgehammer had struck the stone. "There. Much better." She replaced the cover.

"Nyssa!" Tegan made a strangled sound of exasperation. "I swear you had more sense fifty years ago. Are you all right? What happened? I thought you looked a bit peaky."

"I gave him a piece of my mind. When he tried to help himself to the rest of it, I... left." Nyssa smiled wanly. "Rattled but unharmed. Tegan, I didn't go looking for him; he found me. And so..." She waggled the ion bonder, then tucked it away. "Now, tell me what happened after I went to trip the alarm. I was worried about you."

"Aww, if you can handle him, so can I. And it was kinda fun, getting to be danger girl for a change." Briefly, she recounted her run-in with the Master, the farce with Lasarti, and their conversation in the cafe of which Nyssa had only been able to overhear snatches. "I hope I didn't screw anything up by telling him all that. He hasn't met you yet, right? I'm getting bloody sick of time paradoxes."

"That makes two of us," Nyssa said. "Speaking of which, I had a minor disagreement with the Doctor. I didn't tell him about Lasarti, but he knows the Master's here. He was rather put out when I asked him to leave him to us."

"I don't blame him!" Tegan said. "We've got no business tangling with a Time Lord. The Doctor has enough trouble dealing with him, right?" There was an awkward silence. "Oh, Nyssa, don't give me those sad eyes. What's the problem?"

"As you said: a time paradox." Nyssa sighed and laced her hands upon the table, fingers tightening as she spoke. "I know where the Doctor and Lasarti first met one another, and it wasn't now or here. Do you remember that farmhouse I told you about? It was a dream, a trap like Castrovalva, created by the Master to ensnare the Doctor's mind during the very instant of his next regeneration. The Doctor reached out to me telepathically, calling for help. Lasarti and I used the oneirometer to answer him and help him escape. If we hadn't... well, I don't like to think what might've happened."

"No regeneration. And no more Doctor." Tegan reached out and stroked a thumb against the back of her wrist, sensing the melancholy bottled up behind Nyssa's bare-bones account. "So that's why you've been so anxious. And you think the Master's trying to nab Lasarti and his gadget, to prevent you two from saving the Doctor's life?"

"It's the logical conclusion. And I refuse to allow him to interfere." Nyssa curled her hand over Tegan's, protective. "Except... I hate to ask, Tegan, but since I also have to avoid Lasarti, I don't think I can manage this without you."

"Too right, you can't. Because I won't let you." Tegan spread her other hand across Nyssa's. "So what's the plan? Lasarti invited me to the Master's seminar on hypnosis first thing in the morning. Great scheduling, eh? All the students are probably half-asleep."

"And susceptible," Nyssa added soberly. She pondered. "That just might work. You can have another go at persuading Lasarti not to trust him, while I search his office for evidence that might expose him as an impostor."

"Okay. Not much of a chance, but I guess it's something. Can't believe I'm actually volunteering to face that creep again."

Nyssa's face fell. "If you'd rather not—"

"No way! I'm going. It's not like he can pull much funny business in front of a whole auditorium of witnesses. Now, how about that guided tour? I want to see where you're— where you _will_ be living, I should say."

"Oh, Tegan, I'd love to, but I really think we'd better get back to the TARDIS. It would be just our luck to run into the wrong person."

"You sure know how to show a girl a good time," Tegan grumbled. "All right, all right. Then can't we at least grab take-out? If there's one thing I'm almost as sick of as time paradoxes, it's the food machine."

Nyssa smiled faintly. "Come on. I'll cook us something."

"Oh, lovely. Petri dish cuisine."


	6. Six

Tegan burst out laughing when they reached the TARDIS. Someone had festooned the roof with garlands of paper flowers and planted a pair of colorful origami bouquets on either side of the door. Pine needles had been raked into a pathway leading to the entrance with pebbles and broken shells providing a playful border. Whoever had decorated the blank panels on all four sides with artist's chalk renditions of flowers and random lizards had considerable skill with shading. A placard of stiff paper dangled crookedly over the POLICE BOX sign, declaring in triumphant rainbow lettering: ART HAPPENS.

"Oh, dear," Nyssa said, picking up a fallen flower and offering it to Tegan. "I don't think the Doctor has seen this."

"Hey, it's camouflage, right?" Tegan said, tucking it behind her ear. "Nobody's going to ask why there's a big blue box in the woods if it's got 'art department' scribbled all over it."

The door was unlocked. Inside, they found the flight deck strewn with tools, Turlough and the Doctor in shirtsleeves, and the Doctor with his head buried under the console. Turlough had the expression of a much-put-upon greyhound, although this was hardly unusual.

"Doctor," he said, "They're back."

"Mm? Oh, splendid. Pass me the turkey baster, would you?"

"The what?"

Tegan covered her mouth with her hands, stifling a laugh. "And this is the genius we trust to put the TARDIS back in one piece?"

"I beg your pardon, I meant the Ganymede driver, of course," the Doctor said, his most dignified tones somewhat muffled by the console.

Nyssa selected a tool from the jumble of gadgetry spread across the floor and handed it to Turlough, who passed it down to the Doctor. "I'm cooking dinner tonight," she said. "For how many?"

"I'm going out," Turlough said. "In fact, I'm late. Tegan, take over for me."

"Me?" Tegan said, looking around at the mess in dismay. "But I don't know a whatsometer from a thingamajig!"

"Apparently, neither does he," said Turlough, scrambling to his feet and brushing off his trousers. Only he could manage to look furtive while snagging a tuxedo jacket from the hatstand and shrugging into it.

"A party?" Tegan said, eying Turlough's freshly-washed hair, pressed pants and neat silk tie, all a slight upgrade over his usual dour school uniform. "No, a date! Who's the girl?"

"Tegan," Nyssa chided. She caught Turlough's elbow as he reached for the door controls. "Just a moment." Standing on tiptoe, she gave his suit's shoulders a tug and adjusted the poppy-colored handkerchief in his lapel pocket. "There. You look very smart. Are you going to Glaston's?"

He blinked. "However did you guess?"

"Your dinner companion fancies a man in a suit, so I infer upscale tastes. Avoid the amphibian entrées; there's an oil in the skin that's mildly toxic until the native microflora have enhanced your immune system."

He snorted. "Thanks, Mum. Now, if you'll excuse me." He bolted outside before anyone else could block his escape.

Tegan stared after him as Nyssa shut the doors. "Well, what do you know. He's not such a cold fish after all."

The Doctor's head popped out from under the console. His eyes darted from one woman to the other, scanning them thoughtfully, although he affected a surprised smile. "Hello. Didn't hear you two come in. I trust you had a... productive afternoon? Nyssa, give me a hand with this, would you? Turlough seems to have run off somewhere."

"Doctor." Nyssa stepped around some cabling and rapped the top of his head gently with her knuckles. "Dinner. I'll help you with repairs afterwards."

"I thought the auto-repairs were supposed to fix everything," Tegan said, eyeing the scattered bits and pieces with dismay.

"Presently, presently," the Doctor replied. "But some of the auto-repair sensors were burnt out as well. It wouldn't hurt to give everything a once-over, just in case we need to take off in a hurry." He looked up at Nyssa expectantly.

Nyssa gave a minute nod. "Best to be prepared."

His expression darkened. "Very well. I'll close up for now. What's on tonight's menu? If you need me to program the food machine—"

"Tegan's craving hand-cooked food. I'm indulging her. But I might need your help in matching some of the ingredients."

"Oh," he said, sounding even more disgruntled. He had been tinkering with the food machine for centuries, and took some pride in its eclectic cuisine from over three dozen worlds. Nyssa was content to sample his experiments, but Tegan, true to form, had a few things to say about the TARDIS menu.

"Hey, Nyssa, what's this?" Tegan interrupted, picking up a pamphlet lying on the console. "'Terminus Medical Station, putting health and care back into health care.' Very snappy." She turned it over. "Cripes, you look ghastly. I hope you fired the photographer."

"I had a hospital to manage, Tegan; my looks were very far from a priority in those days." Nyssa glanced up, sensing the Doctor had quietly gotten to his feet behind her and was gazing down at the picture over her shoulder. The disquiet on his face told her that he had not seen the photograph until now. She knew what troubled him: Terminus had taken a visible toll on her beyond the effects of Lazar's disease, especially during those first grueling years. For a long time, she and Lasarti had assumed they would have to adopt.

"Did I ever mention how proud I was of your work on Terminus?" the Doctor said gruffly.

"Yes." She nudged him, tucking away a smile as Tegan started making faces at her. "Come along, Doctor. The TARDIS surely won't mind if we leave her to air out until after supper."

* * *

"Barramundi Meunière," Tegan said, sniffing at the light sauce over the seafood dish that Nyssa had concocted. "I had something like this on the Cairns Esplanade. I'm not usually a fish and chips fan, but this is great!"

"Thanks," Nyssa said. "We're near the sea, so it's a little taste of home." She glanced at the morose-looking figure eating in silence at the other end of the table. "Doctor, are you all right?"

"More tachyon leakage," he muttered, staring over their heads. "I wonder how much longer that containment vessel's going to hold."

"Tachyons," Tegan said. "Rabbits, I'd forgotten all about that. Have you tracked down whatever's causing it?"

He shrugged and returned to picking at his food.

"Doctor," Nyssa said. "If that temporal disturbance is getting worse—"

"Well, that's my problem, isn't it?" He looked up, blinking owlishly at the two women staring at him. "Each of us has our own school project to work on; how very traditional. Unless it's time for an interdepartmental collaboration? An exchange of information?"

Tegan turned to Nyssa, who gave a curt head-shake. "I really don't think the two problems are connected."

"But you can't be sure of that!" Tegan said. "It would be just like the Master to have his fingers in two pies at once."

"I know that," Nyssa said. "Besides, even if he's not involved, he's bound to notice sooner or later, if the Doctor's feeling the effects. Doctor, what have you found?"

"Oh, just some humanoids messing around with dangers they don't fully understand." He flapped a hand to the room at large. "There's a lot of it going about."

"Doctor," Nyssa said, coaxing. "We can't help if you don't tell us what's going on."

"How odd. That's just what I was thinking," he said, crumpling up his napkin and tossing it onto the table, then pushing back his chair. "I'm going to finish those repairs. The TARDIS won't object to my aid, at least."

Tegan jumped to her feet. "That's not fair, and you know it!" she snapped. "Nyssa's trying to—"

"Tegan," Nyssa said in a low voice.

"Trying to what? Save my life?" He glowered at them. "By taking on the Master, while I twiddle about trying to keep some stubborn academic from blowing up her lab. What an excellent use of our skills! Perhaps I'll let Turlough pilot the TARDIS, you can bowl for Stockbridge, and Nyssa can try her hand as air hostess. Yes, yes, I know, you're trying to avoid a temporal paradox. This is a paradox, Tegan, or at least an oxymoron. Frankly, I can't see why Nyssa thinks her interference is any less likely to disrupt the timeline than mine."

"Look," Tegan said, voice rising to match his. "She's already had to fight one Time Lord today, so you just leave her alone!"

"And she wouldn't have had to fight him, if you two weren't determined to follow Adric's spectacularly bad example of misplaced heroism!"

Nyssa lunged for Tegan's arm as she made to follow his stormy exit. "Please don't."

"He has no right to talk to you like that!" Tegan said. Her eyes glistened; that parting shot had struck a nerve. "Nor me, neither!"

Nyssa hugged her. "I know. It wasn't your idea; I dragged you into this."

"That's not what I meant. You're trying to look after the people you care about... and so am I." Tegan's arms circled the smaller woman protectively. "So am I."

"Yes, you are." Slumping, Nyssa rested her cheek against her friend's jaw and breathed out, listening to the Doctor's stomping footfalls fading away. "Just... give him time. How would you feel if I'd told you the Master was following me, then I shut you out? And the Doctor's never been the same since Adric."

Bristling indignation slowly drained away from Tegan's tensed frame. "Yeah. I guess he cared after all."

"Of course he does. I doubt he'll ever forget, if he lives five thousand years. He just doesn't like to speak of the past. There's so much... it would crush him." She patted Tegan's shoulder. "I'll talk to him."

Tegan made a face. "What, now? Let him sulk. He's acting like a six-year-old."

"With which I have some experience," Nyssa said, "having raised two."

Tegan made a skeptical noise, but released her and waved her away from the dishes. "Go on, go on. I'll clean up this lot. You know, Turlough was right. If I didn't know better, I'd think you two were married, arguing over dinner, puttering over the Sunday crossword and sneaking out to the garage to tinker with old cars."

Nyssa shook her head. "But the Trakenite word for marriage means match, not inequality."

Resting her mind on the soothing hum of the TARDIS, she had composed herself by the time she reached the control room. She was unsurprised to find the Doctor's long legs and striped trousers stretched out across the floor, obstructing the entryway. His head and shoulders were once more hidden beneath the console. Stepping carefully over his legs, she sat down beside him and pulled her knees towards herself, waiting. He continued tinkering. There was a spark, a muffled oath, and silence. When he tossed a spanner aside and started groping around on the floor next to him, Nyssa picked up a probe and set it in his grasp. His fingers acknowledged hers with a brief touch before he dove back into the circuits.

"I keep remembering," he said finally, "when you first called me back to Traken."

"Even before your regeneration, when you were... whatever the Watcher was." The melancholy warmth in her voice peeled away decades. "You terrified me. At first, I thought you were my father's ghost."

"And you were barely more than a child. So innocent, so terribly vulnerable. I nearly left you behind."

"Yes. I'm very lucky you took the chance," she said, keeping her tone light. "Consul Katura said I was hallucinating, that I should ignore phantoms and visions, lest I fall to madness like my poor stepmother. But you said you would help me find my father, if he still lived. So I followed."

"Brave girl. I wish I had been able to keep that promise." There was an unpleasant scraping sound under the console. "Laser cutter?"

She was already dropping it into his hand. "But Doctor, you did. It was a shock, but I'm grateful that I could say goodbye to Father's face, even if he wasn't behind it any longer."

"As long as you travel with me, I'm afraid you'll keep running into him." There was another sparking noise and a scent of burnt polymer. "The Master's my responsibility, Nyssa. He shouldn't be yours."

She rummaged around in the bits and pieces scattered across the floor for insulated pliers, slipping them into the open hatch beside his head. "Here. Doctor, I'm not going to argue with you. You simply must have faith in me and Tegan, as you've expected of us so many times. Is that so much to ask?"

"Stay in the TARDIS. Wait here. Don't do anything rash." His grumbles echoed oddly in the depths of the console. "A dose of the Doctor's own medicine, you mean?"

"If you like." Her lips twisted in a rueful smile. "Not so easy to swallow, is it?"

"I can't say I care for the taste, no."

"Nor I. It's been very comforting, stepping back into your shadow again. I'm going to miss that false sense of security."

"That's not entirely flattering. Have you been taking lessons from Tegan?"

"No. From you, remember?" She sat back, massaging her lower back with her knuckles. She wondered why such a long-lived race never worried about ergonomics. "You've stranded me in snowbanks, in besieged Crusader castles, in jails and brainwashing centers and spaceships falling to pieces. Sometimes I reproached you for abandoning me, even when I knew there was something important you had to do, or that you simply couldn't always look after us no matter how hard you try. But that training has served me well. Since I left, I've entered war zones, plague outbreaks, planets ravaged by biological warfare— places where a sheltered child of Traken would have been helpless. Nor have I always worked alone. I learned from you about the most difficult decision of all, when one is forced to let others shoulder the risk. I understand, Doctor, and I know how much harder that becomes, after you've lost someone under your watch."

He went still. She knew she was pushing him, but she also knew he was listening. So she plowed ahead.

"I can't promise you that Tegan and I will be safe. But you can't either. All I can tell you is that you've prepared us. And thanks to your lessons on how to survive, I've been able to save thousands of lives." The smile in her voice was audible. "Thank you."

For a time, the hum of the TARDIS was the only language between them. Then: "Ratchet spanner?"

She took the cutter from his outstretched hand and swapped it as requested, feeling the firm squeeze that lingered against her palm.

* * *

"Are you gonna be up all night?" Tegan peeked around the door into Nyssa's bedroom, which she had converted into a small lab after moving back in with Tegan. She grinned a little: even as an older woman, Nyssa had a bad habit of tinkering with enzymes in her underwear, although at least now that consisted of white satin pajamas. "Honestly, the least you can do is keep me company after I spent the day babysitting the boy you threw me over for."

Nyssa set down the slide she was preparing and swiveled her chair around, eyes widening. "What?"

"I'm joking!" Tegan said. "Well, mostly. You can be so dense sometimes, you know that? Come on. I don't want you bumping into Moriarty out there tomorrow on half a cup of coffee and no sleep."

"I... I need to finish this titration," Nyssa said, disconcerted. "Turlough's discovered a strange drug being distributed to the students. Give me twenty minutes; I can set up the analysis to run overnight."

"All right, Madame Curie." Tegan yawned. "Turn off the bathroom light when you come in. Oh, don't look at me like that; it's hardly the first time I've had a letdown. Frankly, I'm relieved you didn't turn out to be a nun after all. And that you picked someone I'm not inclined to throttle."

"Tegan, wait." Nyssa held out a hand. Tegan hesitated, catching the door in the act of closing it, then stepped into the room and reached out, only to be enveloped in a fierce hug. Blinking rapidly, she cradled Nyssa's head against her stomach and mentally cursed Terminus for the thousandth time. She must be tired. She had not meant to let that slip, not now. The sterile white lights of the laboratory and the hiss of the bunsen burner were hardly the right environment for personal confessions, but on the other hand, this was Nyssa's domain, so the glare and faint chemical smell were almost homey.

"I'm honored. And I'm so sorry," Nyssa said. "I should have realized. Back then, I didn't have the framework to understand... but that's no excuse, certainly not now. Are you all right? What I've asked of you today—"

"Honestly, it's fine." Tegan gave a tired chuckle. "I was furious with you for leaving, but I've had a few months to get used to it and to you— the new you, I mean, and that other life you've had. Besides, with all those creepy blokes in beat-up armor skulking about on Terminus, I was afraid you'd be taken in by the first slimeball who could fake being a nice guy. But you weren't. He's the real deal. And I'm glad. I wanted you to be happy."

"You're amazing, Tegan." Nyssa held her close until she pulled away.

"I am, though, aren't I?" Tegan swiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Now finish up the mad science and come to bed."

It took rather longer than normal for Nyssa to program the spectrometer and secure the samples inside it. More than usually thoughtful, she was tidying up her lab bench when there was a crash from the direction of the console room. Had the Doctor failed to close one of the access panels? The sound of a door slamming open and running footsteps put paid to that thought. She had only just pushed back her chair when there was an urgent rapping on her door.

"Nyssa!" Turlough hissed. "Nyssa, have you a medical kit? I need your help!"

She cast a robe over her pajamas, transferred the ion bonder to a deep pocket and stepped out into the corridor. "What's wrong?" she said, peering up into Turlough's flushed face. "You didn't eat—"

"No, no, not me!" he said impatiently. "It's Vevik. I think he's having some sort of allergic reaction. He's passed out!"

"Keep it down out there, you two," Tegan groaned from the other side of the wall. "Whatever it is, can't it wait until morning?"

Nyssa felt her way along several roundels before tapping one and catching a first aid kit that popped out. "We must get him to the hospital at once," she said. "I'm a specialist, not a GP. Where is he?"

"Control room." Turlough was wheezing; Nyssa guessed that he must have been carrying him. "Come on, Nyssa, hurry!"

She broke into a jog, keeping her voice low and soothing. "Were there any preliminary symptoms? Vomiting? Indigestion? Dizziness? Sweating?"

"Dizzy, shortness of breath, slurred speech. And his pulse has gone crazy."

They hurried to the console room, where the neat-looking young man whom Turlough had befriended earlier that day now lay on his back with Turlough's jacket rolled under his head. His brown skin was ashen gray, blotched purple at his cheeks, temples, and the backs of his hands.

"Did he mention any chronic illnesses?" Nyssa said briskly, dropping to her knees and reaching for one wrist. It took three tries to locate his pulse; human-diaspora races had somewhat variant physiologies that made standard medical procedures tricky.

"No," Turlough said, wringing his hands. "Nothing. He just started having trouble breathing. At first I thought it was only—" he blushed and trailed off. "He was fine. He seemed a little vague when we left the restaurant, but we were having a nice, quiet stroll back through the grounds when he started stumbling over his words, and before I knew it, he was on the ground."

"That sounds very distressing." Lifting the young man's eyelids and peering at his pupils, she noticed broken capillaries around his irises. "It could be Deitz's Venacosis. But there's a maintenance drug for that, unless..." She fished out a patch from the medical kit, frowning at the expiration date before unbuttoning the young man's collar and pressing it against his carotid. "Did he try one of those new Stimsi formulations, do you think?"

"Yes, Vevik was the one who told me about the trials. Why, what have you found?"

"Nothing, yet; I couldn't detect any toxins or pathogens. I've programmed a molecular analysis that may tell us more. But the drug for Deitz is in the same family as the telomere stabilizer in hydromel."

"Hydromel?" Turlough stared down at the ashen face, barely attending. "That green slime?"

"Yes." She checked his pulse again: thready and irregular, but holding for now. "Never mind. The patch I administered should stave off vascular collapse, but we need to remove him to emergency care at once."

"But I don't know where that is!"

"Shhh, it's all right. I'll call security dispatch. I'm afraid I can't go with you; some of the staff know me, or will know me. Here." She fumbled in her robe's pockets, pulling out her lab notebook and a pen to jot down instructions in medical shorthand.

Before she could finish, the Doctor appeared at the inner door, taking in the tableau at a glance and peering curiously at the stranger laid out in the TARDIS antechamber. "Problem?"

"I think someone's been using students for unsafe drug testing," Nyssa said. "Doctor, can you help carry him outside the TARDIS? I assume you'd prefer to avoid awkward questions."

"Indeed." The Doctor stooped. "Turlough, take his feet."

While the pair carried Vevik to a bench alongside the path skirting the woods, Nyssa hurried to the nearest directory, summoning a security cart for pick-up. Vevik was stirring by the time she returned.

"Turlough?" he said, voice fuzzy and faint. "What is happening?"

"Easy there, friend," Turlough said, chafing his hands. "You just rest. It appears that the cheese was poisoned."

"Cheese? I don't recall any... cheese?"

An electric cart's lights appeared in the distance, coming from the direction of the quad. "Here." Nyssa tore off the notes she had been making, folded them neatly and pressed them into Turlough's hand with a reassuring pat. "Show this to EC's receptionist. That's a record of the patch I used, as well as my suspicions about drug interactions. And don't worry. They'll take good care of him."

"Thanks, but what do I—?"

She had already faded into the shadows of the trees, unsurprised to find the Doctor ambling beside her. They walked back side by side, listening to the rise and fall of Turlough's agitated voice and the businesslike tones of a security guard. Stepping into the lee of the TARDIS, they hid from the cart's sweeping headlights until it glided out of sight. The Doctor let out an explosive sigh and pulled out his handkerchief, wiping at one of the chalk flower drawings around the back.

"It'll all come off in the time vortex, won't it?" Nyssa said.

Stepping around to the front, he batted irritably at the dangling sign. "Probably."

"Poor Turlough," she added. "I think he's made a friend."

"Not another passenger, I trust. The TARDIS is already at capacity."

"Not once I've—" She stopped, peering towards the path that they had just vacated. Was there a solitary figure standing under one of the lamp-posts beyond the trees? The silhouette was disquietingly familiar. Raising her chin, she stepped resolutely into the bright lights of the console room, turning her back on shadows.

The Doctor picked up something in her manner and hung back, pivoting on the threshold to peer into the darkness. But whether she had imagined it or not, the figure was gone. The Doctor operated the door controls with a scowl, blocking out the foggy night air. "One day," he said. "I'll give you one more day. But if he's hunting you, Nyssa..."

By way of reply, she drew out the ion bonder and held it up, giving the base an emphatic twist.

"Why," he said, peering. "That's mine, isn't it?"

"I've stepped up the ion rate. A nasty knock, even for a Time Lord." She slipped it back into her pocket and padded towards the inner door, a small figure in satin pajamas and a fluffy robe. "Goodnight, Doctor."

"I must remember, Tremas," he quoted to empty air, after she had vacated the flight deck, "never to fall out with your daughter." He had worn a different face the last time he uttered those words.

Then again, so had she.

And so had Tremas.


	7. Seven

Three of the TARDIS residents were up and about by dawn, despite the previous evening's excitement. Tegan, on the other hand, was ready to smother Nyssa with a bolster when she came to rouse her somewhat later. "Ooooh. After all that bumping around last night, the least you could do is let me sleep in." A tray with a steaming pot of tea, a plate of toast and a poached egg had appeared on a rattan footstool placed strategically in her line of sight. "And don't think bribery's going to work."

"Consider it an apology." Nyssa lifted the tea cozy and filled one of a pair of delicate teacups. "Lasarti's seminar begins in forty minutes."

"Why don't you go, then?" Tegan grumbled into the pillow. "He's your boyfriend, after all."

Nyssa smiled, tight-lipped. "I wish I could."

Groaning, Tegan sat up, lured by the scent of freshly-poured tea. "Hang on. That's not the Doctor's stale old stash, is it? Where on Earth did you find Russian Caravan? I thought he hated smoky teas."

"The cafe sells it. And it's actually Taurian Tips, but it's the closest I could manage—"

"—To my favorite Brissie blend. With the royal treatment, yet." She recognized the pride of Nyssa's modest china collection, the Victoria & Albert cups which had actually been gifted to her by Queen Victoria. Despite her Republican leanings, Tegan wished she hadn't missed that adventure. "All right, all right. You still owe me."

"I'll find the TARDIS hot tub?"

"Yeah, sure." At the best of times, it tended to wander, and nobody had located it since the rendezvous with Terminus had caused several rooms to go missing. "And then we'll have to send a search party after you." Tegan dropped into the wicker peacock chair that Nyssa had pulled up for her and fell to.

Nyssa poured herself a cup, disguised the smoky aftertaste with milk, and sat down in the opposite chair to sip tea in companionable silence. Only when Tegan was finishing the last few bites did she venture, "You know to stick to crowds where there's witnesses around, right? It's safer."

Tegan waved a hand and nodded, mouth full of egg.

"Good. Then, while you're at the seminar, I'll search the Master's office. But don't meet me there. That's where he tried to bring me, which means it's not safe. I'll find you at the cafe."

"No kidding." Tegan frowned and gulped the last mouthful. "So what's to stop him from catching you snooping around?"

"I'll be safely away before his seminar lets out, don't worry. It lasts one and a half periods, so I should have time."

"Ugh. I'm going to nod off before it's over."

"Drink your tea," Nyssa said, smiling faintly. "You'll hardly be the first. But please, try to stay alert."

Tegan sobered. "Yeah. I'll try."

"And... take this." She drew the ion bonder from the pocket of her coveralls and held it out. "I want you to have it, just in case. It should stun up to four meters. The beam is roughly the same shape as an electric torch's."

Tegan shook her head. "Oh, no. You're the one going into the lion's den alone. You keep it."

"Tegan—"

"I'd better get changed!" she said brightly, hopping up and hustling towards the bathroom. "Fetch me one of my color-patch tunics, would you?"

Both of them were stubborn, but Tegan had the upper hand in this argument: she threatened to lock herself in the bathroom until Nyssa gave in. A short time later, Nyssa was bundling her out the door into a chilly, fog-drenched morning. Tegan was armed with a campus map guiding her to the correct lecture hall and the Terminus pamphlet, which she had rescued from the recycling bin. As Nyssa was squeezing Tegan's hand and wishing her luck, Turlough emerged out of the fog, hair beaded with moisture and his face a study in gloom. To judge by his rumpled suit, he had slept in a chair. Tegan vanished into the mist with a wave as Nyssa drew Turlough inside.

"So, how is Vevik?" she said, steering him back into the kitchen for a warm breakfast.

"Sleeping," Turlough said. "They've kept him on life support as a precaution. You might have told me how serious it was."

"There was no point in alarming you," she said, programming boiling water to recharge the pot for a second pouring. "I couldn't be sure my diagnosis was correct. Besides, I knew they had the facilities to repair circulatory damage. It was Deitz's Syndrome, then?"

He nodded and sank into a chair. "So I gather. They were being awfully hush-hush about it. I wonder if that drug company has bribed someone to do a cover-up."

"It's possible, but patient confidentiality is standard medical procedure. And speaking of Hydra Pharmaceuticals, your hunch was spot-on. There's something wrong with their new Stimsi formulation. Your unlucky friend's accident was a clue."

"Wrong? It's not really a poison, is it? I saw dozens of students trying it yesterday." He made a face. "I dumped mine into a cactus."

"By itself it's perfectly harmless, although mildly addictive. When combined with hydromel, however, or the drug that keeps Deitz's in check—"

"What exactly is hydromel?"

"A nutrient gel that shields chromosomes from radiation damage and boosts the immune system. It's absolutely vital for anyone stationed at Terminus; it's a powerful prophylactic against Lazar's disease."

Turlough's brows knitted. "I take it this is some sort of medical sabotage?"

"Yes. The modified Stimsi binds with stomach enzymes to form a compound that weakens hydromel. The effect is more pronounced with Deitz's. With hydromel, it's so subtle that it would be difficult to trace. Caregivers would start coming down with Lazar's, and we wouldn't know why."

He frowned. "But why would anyone want to kill medical personnel?"

"Before it was shut down, the old Terminus Corporation used to be a subsidiary of Hydra Pharmaceuticals. Also, until I figured out how to create hydromel in-house, Hydra was its only supplier."

Turlough gave a humorless chuckle. "And of course _their_ hydromel won't be affected by whatever they've done to Stimsi. So, at one stroke, they damage your hospital's credibility with an outbreak of disease among the staff, regain their drug monopoly, and, with any luck, kill _you_ off in revenge. Very neat."

"Turlough, I need you to do something for me." She hurried back to her room, returning with a padded envelope labeled in her precise, delicate capitals. "Here's the slides and readouts from my analysis. They should be sufficient to spark an investigation, assuming they fall into honest hands. Please deliver them to Dr. Mikros, head of pathology. Tell him that it's from me, Nyssa of Traken. No details, just that I was passing through and asked you to give it to him. Tell him it's confidential and urgent. Tell him that he mustn't contact me, since Hydra is sure to be monitoring all communications with Terminus."

"Can't you tell him yourself?"

She fluttered a hand at her face. "This would require some explanation."

"Oh, right." He took the packet from her and laid it on the table next to his mug. "Do I get any thanks for this?"

"A great many." She smiled at him. "You've just saved the lives of most of my staff and many of the patients' families— hundreds of people, at least. Well done."

"You won't tell, will you? It would leave my reputation in shambles."

She nodded solemnly. "My lips are sealed."

* * *

Doctor Mikros, a broad gray lump of a man, had been less than pleased by Turlough's surprise delivery. He demanded to know where "Lady Traken" was hiding herself and why she expected him to rattle Big Pharma's cage just when he was up for tenure. He was a scientist, not a lawyer, and he had ten oral exams to administer in the next five weeks. Morosely conceding that somebody ought to do something about it, but that it was a damned shame an old man couldn't be left to his pathogens in peace, he all but slammed the door in Turlough's face. Privately sympathizing with him, Turlough slunk off to explore another part of the building. Sure enough, he found the Doctor pacing outside the locked cryonics lab, fidgeting with a cricket ball.

"Morning," Turlough said.

"Hmm," said the Doctor. "Seen Nyssa about?"

Turlough raised his eyes to the ceiling. "In the TARDIS. She had me playing errand boy to one her colleagues, helping her to discredit the company that's promised to pay me five thousand credits."

"That would be the corporation that's using students as test subjects? How is your friend, by the way?"

"You have a point," he admitted. "And he's on the mend, thanks. So, what are we doing here?"

"Waiting for one Professor Xertes, whose current project is building up to an explosion that could make all this—" he waved a hand vaguely around them — "academic in a disturbingly metaphorical sense." He frowned. "Is Tegan with Nyssa?"

Turlough shook his head. "No. Nyssa bustled her off on some other job. Do you have any idea what they're plotting?"

The Doctor smacked his palm with his knuckles in frustration. "Not the faintest. But whatever it is, that is _not_ the way to be going about it. They should stay together."

Turlough eyed him. "At the beginning of all this, Nyssa mentioned something about a dream analyst," he offered cautiously. "But I can't see what psychotherapy has to do with exploding tachyons."

"It doesn't. And whatever Nyssa told you, _I don't want to hear a word of it._"

Turlough retreated a step backwards with hands raised in appeasement. "Fine, fine. I just thought you'd want to know."

"Well, that's just what we need," rasped an older woman's voice behind him. "Another Time Lord." Xertes swept up with her student flunkies in tow, barely sparing a glance at Turlough. "Well, Doctor? Have you come to badger, or assist?"

"Dr. Xertes," the Doctor said earnestly, slipping the cricket ball back into his pocket. "Allow me to introduce my companion, Turlough. He's not from Gallifrey. I and my companions are travelers, as I said."

"That may actually be true," she said, unlocking the laboratory seal and stepping through the curtain of hissing vapor as the doors opened. "I downloaded a few reports on your exploits..." She trailed off. The room was full of fog. A few light panels at their end of the room were illuminated or flickering, but most of the enormous space was utterly dark, lacking even emergency lighting. "No!" She set one hand each on her assistants' shoulders. "Keep back, both of you."

"It wasn't like this last night," Hathli said, removing hir glasses and wiping away condensation. "Why didn't the alarms go off?"

The Doctor had already plunged into the fog. After a moment, his voice drifted back to them. "Because your sensors ceased to operate many years ago. Professor Xertes, the pressure's building. You've had a nanosecond leak, and we're lucky your shielding absorbed the brunt of it. Otherwise, the people in this building would be dead of old age. In fact, new species might have evolved to replace them."

"Rubbish!" She raised her voice. "Hathli, Chrys, seize his assistant. Jonsmith, move away from the stasis vessel and tell me exactly what you did to it yesterday during your so-called _inspection._"

Turlough turned to bolt, but his coward's reflexes failed him for once. He gave a squawk and collapsed in a writhing heap as the girl sent a knee into his groin. "Doctor!" he groaned.

Hathli dropped to the floor across Turlough's chest and slipped an elbow under his ear, holding him in a pin. "Now what, professor?"

"There is no call for that!" the Doctor said. There was a faint chuffing noise and a shower of rust and decayed insulation. A few of the ceiling fans sputtered to life. The haze in the room began to clear. The air wafting through the doorway stank of chemicals and decay. The Doctor stepped away from some air conditioning controls on the wall and dusted himself off. "Now, perhaps we can see what we're doing."

"Professor," Chrys said, covering her nose with a cupped hand. "Look. The cryonic tanks have defrosted."

"Ugh," Hathli said, glancing towards some grisly-looking black stains on the inside of the nearest glass tank. Most of them seemed to be inoperable, although there were a few near the entryway whose exteriors were still frosted. "This is going to be a hell of a biomat clean-up."

"I'm waiting for an answer, Jonsmith," Xertes snapped.

"I've already told you, Professor. Your experiment is compressing space-time inside that chamber. Every second that ticks by adds to the strain. Sooner or later, something is going to rupture. And will you _please_ release Turlough! Violence is not going to solve temporal distortion."

Chrys had started towards the workstations and was waving her hands over the desk, trying to activate its holographic keyboard. The desk surface remained empty, and the glass display panels remained dark. "Professor, the computers are down, too."

"As are most of your control mechanisms." The Doctor's voice was grim. "Professor Xertes, you can blame me, your grant committee, or the great god Dibbly Dobbly — frankly I don't care. All that's standing between us and a temporal rupture is your incredibly decayed synchochron helix and a few dregs of power from Karpen batteries that could fail at any moment."

"But Karpen batteries last for a thousand years," Hathli objected.

"Ex_cuse_ me," Turlough growled, still squirming under Hathli's weight. "If I'm about to die of old age, I'd prefer to do it without some git sitting on top of me."

"Chrys, come away from there," Xertes said sharply. "All right, Hathli, release him. Chrys, I want you to contact Dean Tidmarsh, and— _Chrys!"_

The girl had stooped to inspect one of the dead cryo tanks. Suddenly she crumpled. At the same moment, the Doctor gasped and clapped a hand over his eyes. Recovering himself, he threw out his arms as if barricading the room. "Stay back!" Stumbling forward, he scooped up the girl and carried her towards the door. "Dehydration, malnutrition... she needs immediate treatment if you're to save her. Turlough, Hathli, _move._"

Professor Xertes rushed to a directory panel in the hallway and called for an emergency medical pickup as Turlough and Hathli began to carry the limp, emaciated figure towards the elevator. After the doors had closed on the three young people, the scientist sagged, then composed herself and pulled up the building's public address system. "This is Professor Halcyon Xertes," she said. "I'm calling a Class QR evacuation of the BHR Center. I repeat. Class QR. Elevators are permitted. You have ten minutes to exit the building. Do not shelter in place. Muster at secondary assembly points. Repeat, this is a class QR evacuation."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, bending over and catching his breath. Harried-looking staff and students began to trickle into the hallway, shooting nervous glances towards the cryo lab as they hurried towards elevators and stairwells. "You should leave as well, Professor; my physiology is better-equipped to deal with localized nano time fluctuations."

"Until they stop being localized, in which case a distance of a few thousand kilometers will hardly matter."

"Well, yes." Without preamble, he turned and dashed towards the nearest elevator.

"Doctor, where are you going?"

"My TARDIS," he said, diving into the lift just ahead of the surge of people. "Back before you know it!"

As she started to follow, a wheezing, groaning noise thundered inside the darkened cryo lab. Professor Xertes turned. A blue rectangular shape was flickering in and out of view like a spent neon tube.

"If that's your TARDIS, Jonsmith," the scientist muttered, "it seems I'm not the only one with multiple systems failures."


	8. Eight

Disoriented in the watery sunlight seeping through the morning fog, Tegan nearly missed the monolithic structure looming out of the mist. She joined the dribs and drabs of students streaming in through multiple doors. Planting herself at the top of the steep auditorium among the wheelchair spaces, she scanned the students filing past and searched the stadium seats below. Lasarti spotted her first. About two thirds of the way down, he was standing and waving at her with both arms. With a surge of relief, she hurried down to him, scrambling over a few rows to slide into the empty seat he'd saved.

"Morning! Wondered if you'd make it," he said, grinning. "Not much of a date, really."

"A date?" Her eyebrows scrambled upwards. "Uh, thanks? I wasn't sure whether you'd want to see me after yesterday."

Lasarti shrugged. "I'm a scientist; I can't resist a mystery. Besides, I flatter myself that maybe this is all much simpler than I'm making it out to be. Maybe you're just a discerning stranger who's fallen for my..."

"Roguish good looks?" She shook her head, amused. "Sorry to dash your hopes, Lasarti, but I'm just a friend of a friend."

He pouted. "I was going to say brains. No? Bugger. Ah, well, beauty is in the eye of the koniocortex."

Her chuckle died as the Master strode out of the shadows at the back of the stage and raised his arms in a theatrical gesture, as if invoking unseen powers. "Good morning," he said, commanding voice easily reaching the top of the auditorium. Conversations died away with unnatural speed. Tegan looked around, disturbed to see just how many faces were fixed raptly on the Master's upturned face. _Hypnosis lessons, indeed._ She began to feel distinctly uneasy. Nyssa had advised her to seek safety in numbers, but if he could dominate an entire auditorium with his voice, a crowd was no refuge at all.

"Before we begin the praxis portion of today's lecture, are there any questions concerning last week's deep dive into the rostrum of the corpus callosum?" The Master scanned the darkened auditorium, his gaze coming to rest squarely on her. Surely it was an illusion. He must be using some conjurer's trick meant to fool each person into thinking he was speaking directly to them. She glared out defiantly, just in case.

There were no questions. He let the silence percolate, then raised his arms again. "Very well. Today we will be continuing our experiment in memory recall. I trust you have all read the file on somatic imprints. Please take out your tablets. Do not review your past notes on the memory you have selected. Now. Settle yourselves comfortably. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in... cast your mind back... Breathe out... back to the beginning of your memory. You are there. Breathe deeply. You are perfectly safe. You are an observer of time, not its prisoner. Now, bring your awareness to your hands. Manual memories are often deeply embedded. Look. Feel. Where are your hands? What are you doing with them?"

Tegan sat with arms folded as the lesson dragged on, glaring at the Master as he conducted what seemed to her like a classic hypnotist's spiel, leading the audience through a guided visualization that, supposedly, extracted details that they had forgotten. The rise and fall of his showman's voice set her teeth on edge, not least because she was afraid he was implanting some sort of unconscious commands. However, for the moment, the exercise seemed innocuous. As he called upon volunteers to recount their memories before and after hypnotic stimulation, Lasarti whispered in her ear.

"I've been thinking. Suppose I buy your story. Then what? I'm already on probation, thanks to Crane. If I walk away from Daskalos, he could have me expelled or revoke my fellowship."

"So? Get a job! Work you way up somewhere else. There's a whole universe out there, Lasarti; I've seen it."

"Oh, sure— if I want to abandon my work for mining or haulage. No one's going to hire an unlicensed psychology major without a degree."

"How about Terminus Medical Station? They're hiring. You'd better believe some of those patients could use a counselor!"

"Terminus!" He looked dismayed. "Wasn't it shuttered a few years ago? Some kind of malpractice scandal."

"It's under new management. Come on, it's not the cheeriest place in the world, but I know they'd give a bright guy like you a chance." Never mind how she knew. It felt strange recruiting for Terminus, after she had grown to hate its every last grill, rivet and air duct. Especially the air ducts.

"It sounds like you've been there."

She nodded. "Yeah. I know someone who caught Lazar's. The treatment saved her life."

"So it's true? I thought maybe that cure was all a corporate smokescreen."

"No. Look, I've got a pamphlet—"

"Miss Jovanka." The Master's smooth voice broke over them. "Perhaps you would like to share your memory with the class?"

She flinched. "You mean the one where some bearded maniac is chasing me around and around a beat-up cloister full of bad topiary? Not a chance."

Titters broke out around the hall.

His smile widened. "Our current exercise concerns memory recall, Miss Jovanka, not_ idée fixe_. I would ask you please to focus upon the lesson and to cease in distracting other pupils. Lasarti? In our last session, I believe you were recounting an accident at the stadium."

"Well," he stammered, "...my hands. Right. Um. Hands. I guess the main thing I remember is holding the bloke's hand. His right in my left. My fingers were sticky. I didn't notice the blood until my mate ragged me afterwards for not wearing gloves. And I must've been pressing the ice against his forehead— the patient's, I mean, not my mate's— but I don't remember that bit; I guess my fingers were numb."

The Master interrupted. "I'm sure Miss Jovanka is duly impressed by your Good Samaritan credentials. We will now turn to dream retrieval, a more difficult endeavor which requires a deeper probing of the unconscious matrix..."

Lasarti covered his face as the instructor's attention shifted away. "It's not as exciting as it sounds," he muttered. "Just some poor drunk who tripped and cracked his head on the pavement. Security guards standing around doing bugger-all because they were afraid of lawsuits. I got a bag of ice from a beer vendor and stayed with him until the ambulance arrived. The guest hotline wouldn't tell me what happened; I keep hoping I'll remember enough to track him down."

Tegan patted his arm. "I'm sure it was just a concussion. And you don't have to prove a thing to me. I'm supposed to be proving myself to you, remember?"

He grinned sidelong at her. "Oh, right."

"_Miss_ Jovanka," the Master said again. The laughter around the auditorium had taken on a different tone: more mocking, more cynical. She realized with a chill that it reminded her of the Master's own oily chuckle, unconsciously mimicked by a hundred throats.

She shot a quick glance at Lasarti to see that his attention was fixed upon her rather than on the stage. "Yeah?"

"Since you've inserted yourself into my class, I assume you are willing to participate? Share a dream with us, perhaps?"

"A _dream?" _she said. "No, thanks."

"A pity. There are fines and penalties for unregistered students auditing a class. If you would please leave, there will be no need for me to summon assistance."

The murmurs were growing hostile. She felt the audience as a wall of eyes behind her as she stood. "Or I could play along," she shot back. Lasarti gave her a quizzical look as she stepped over him and headed for the ramp leading down to the stage. "What's your game, then? You want to know what's on my mind? I'll be happy to oblige." She knew Nyssa would have six kinds of conniption, but a public demo might be the quickest way to show Lasarti the Master's true colors.

His eyes gleamed. With an old-fashioned bow, he beckoned her up onto the platform beside him. "Then the stage is yours, Miss Jovanka. Tell the whole class what you're clearly unable to keep to yourself."

She set her hands on her hips. "Right. So, I dreamed of a snake oil salesman. He travels from planet to planet, conning the locals with one scam after another. I woke up before I could find out how he planned to exploit a bunch of psychology students in his latest harebrained scheme."

"Ah, Miss Jovanka, this is most illuminating: _ideé fixe,_ class, as I noted earlier." The laughter ringing around the auditorium was definitely an uncanny echo of his own now. "And was there anyone with you in this... dream? A friend, perhaps?"

Even on her guard, she felt a subtle urge to answer. "N-no. No, I was alone."

"Come, come, Miss Jovanka. This is not the first occasion we have met, after all. I believe I am right in thinking you have a companion named Nyss—"

"Ma_nussa,_" Tegan said desperately, suddenly realizing what the Master was trying to do. "The dream took place on Manussa."

"Manussa, you say? Fascinating. Do continue. _Continue." _He curled his hand loosely in midair, as if cupping her chin in a caress. "You are in the dream. Describe where you are, Tegan Jovanka."

Tegan was beginning to relax in spite of the eerie sensation of standing at the focal point of a huge parabolic mirror made of human eyes, every face in the room turned towards her. "In a big classroom that's so squeaky clean there isn't even gum on the floor. If that's not suspicious, I don't know what is."

"Your dream," he prompted. "On Manussa. Manussa, the heart of the mighty Sumaran Empire. You were dreaming of... a snake oil salesman... a snake charmer, perhaps? A snake." His teeth caressed the sibilants as if toying with them.

"A snake," she said. "Too right, a snake. He's... it's..." She tripped over her words, losing the thread of her thoughts.

"The snake. Follow it down. Follow. Follow the path of the snake. Where are you now?"

"In... in a cave. There's zigzags carved on the wall, like lightning bolts, like... rays. They all point to the same spot. A door, the jaws of a giant snake. You're there, you're a showman, barking out some flimflam routine... _step right up, step right up... see the fabulous Mara, forget your cares... _ and there's people filing in, men and women and children, following the sound of your voice, lured up into the serpent's mouth... _my_ mouth... No! It's not me! It's you! You're the snake!"

"Are you sure, my dear?" the Master said gently. "Look down at your arm."

She shook her head like a shying horse. The line of sacrificial victims was shuffling towards her, faces blank and expressionless. Aunt Vanessa was stumping along behind the leaders, escorted on the elbow of a tall, grave man in black wearing a taller cylindrical hat. The Monitor walked behind them like a blind man leaning heavily on Adric's shoulder, both of them chanting meaningless numbers. Nyssa swooped in from the wings, twirling in a low-cut gown of slashed black and crimson silks, dropping an elaborate curtsey and rising en pointe to offer Tegan a wine glass filled with something that probably wasn't wine at all. Her seductive smile was horrifyingly like the Master's.

Someone was shoving through the line of docile victims, clattering up the steps to reach the dais where Tegan was immobilized. "Sir!" It was a young man's voice. "Sir, she's unwell. End the demonstration. We need to take her to the infirmary."

Someone's hand was cradling her forearm gently, massaging pressure points at the sides of her wrist. Or... returning the Mara to her? She recoiled at the touch.

"Lasarti," Daskalos said. "Compose yourself. As a therapist, you must be prepared for the unusual imagery that springs from the unconscious mind. It can be dangerous to rouse the patient prematurely."

Dim voices were hissing all around her now, filling a natural stone amphitheater whose broken blocks were coated in dripping snakes. Myriad eyes pinned her with their gorgonian gaze. The cavern of the Mara had grown huge, its power amplified a thousandfold by the minds of the serpents twining and untwining, docile pawns of the snake charmer's will. She was the Mara. They were the Mara. He was the Mara, surrounded by countless worshippers.

"But, sir!"

"You _will obey me..._" The Master's voice had shed any pretense now, dropping to near-subharmonics as he issued commands for her ears alone. "Miss Jovanka, tell me what is on your wrist. _Obey me..._"

Against her will, she found her eyes lowering. She gave a choked scream. The image was blurry, but there was an olive-brown snake tattoo coiling around her wrist like fingers...

She felt a sickening lurch_._ Not from within, but from without. Abruptly the pressure on her mind eased. The thing holding her wrist swayed, too. No, not a thing. It was Lasarti, looking as groggy as she felt. Beside them, the Master had grabbed onto the podium, teeth clenched in a spasm that quickly passed. A buzz of dissonant, uneasy whispers began to rustle around the vast chamber, like the first tentative birdsong after a storm had passed.

The Master straightened with a grimace. "Ah, Doctor," he muttered. "Forever interfering, even when your lambs stray. Forgive me, my students, but I believe Lasarti is correct: Miss Jovanka needs to be taken to the infirmary. Class ... dismissed!"

There was a susurrus of gasps, as if from the throats of a hundred swimmers rising from a pool simultaneously to draw breath. Bewildered and agitated voices broke out on all sides. There was nervous laughter, too: some students were taking refuge in cynical comments and nonchalant jokes.

"You two will follow me," the Master said. "Come with me."

Tegan fought against the sludge that mired her mind. "I told you to _shove off._" She raised a fist, only to find the movement hindered by Lasarti's fingers curled loosely around her forearm. His own face was slack. "And you're not taking him, either! Lasarti, wake up! Lasarti, snap out of it." She gave a sharp jerk.

He stirred and raised his head, glassy-eyed. "What... Professor, what's going on? What are you doing?"

The Master swayed again. He made an impatient gesture. "My office hours begin now, if you would like to continue this conversation_._" Turning, he strode stiff-backed to the door at the back of the stage and yanked it open.

Tegan twisted her hand, gripping Lasarti's as hard as she could to stop him from following. His face reanimated as the Master vanished from view. "Ow. Could you please not break my wrist? There's nerves in there, you know."

She breathed out and released her grip. "Ugh. Sorry. _Now_ do you believe me? Do you remember what just happened? Did you see?"

"You... you started babbling something about snakes. And then..." His brows knitted. "That wasn't even remotely ethical! Are you all right? Here, we need to get you to the health center..."

"I'm fine_,_" she insisted. "I'm more worried about you. Come on, I'm taking you back to your dorm."

"No..." he said. His expression firmed. "No. I've got to talk to him. Someone needs to call him out. He's brilliant, you know, but he can't go around jabbing at people's complexes like that."

"So report him!" she said. "You saw what he just did. He could do anything to you!"

"Miss Jovanka." Lasarti was himself again, earnest and self-deprecating. "Why would he? I'm nobody. Look, I can see why he upsets you. That demo was totally out of line. Even so, I've got to offer him a chance at rebuttal. It's not scientifically sound to pass judgment based on only one side of the story. So I'm going to confront him with everything you told me."

"Lasarti, he just hypnotized an entire auditorium full of people, _and_ you, _and_ me, and I was resisting! You told me that wasn't possible! How much more proof do you need?"

He smiled sympathetically. "Get outside, get some fresh air. We'll talk after I've seen him." Before she could protest, he had turned and ducked into the sleepwalking crowd of dazed students.

"Lasarti, wait!"

"I'll meet you in the cafe!" he called over the hubbub. "One hour. See you then!"

"Lasarti!" After all the training she'd had in dodging alien tentacles and grasping androids, s milling press of human bodies should not have presented much difficulty. Nevertheless, by the time she had squeezed through and broken free of the crowd, there was no sign of him. With a sudden premonition of dread, she began accosting stragglers who shrank away from her. "Excuse me, I've forgotten where Professor Daskalos' office is... excuse me..."


	9. Nine

"Useless," Nyssa muttered, thumbing through a tray of old memory chips that surely predated the Master's arrival. Apart from student papers and class notes stored on his workstation, there was no hint of the Master's presence in his spartan office. There were no pictures, no plants, no personal effects, not even a mug. She supposed she should be grateful there were no family photos, either. All she had found was a notepad on which someone had been practicing Crane's signature, and that was hardly proof of anything.

A light rain had begun to patter against the windows. She checked the chronometer above the door for the twentieth time. There had been a staggering moment earlier when the display stuttered and the whole world seemed to miss a beat, a sure sign that the Doctor's work was not going well. But time was his charge, and she had faith in his last-minute miracles. She had her own task. There was only half a period left before the Master's seminar finished, and she needed to give herself time to clear the building. Sighing, she closed the desk and cast around for one last spot to search. Her gaze fell upon the tall, ugly, institutional metal bookshelf that occupied most of one wall. She ought to inspect the rows of black, unlabeled binders that filled most of its shelves between old-fashioned printed textbooks, but she was reluctant to touch them.

A sound froze her in the act of reaching for one.

Nyssa had not known until she heard the click of bootheels in the hallway outside that she could recognize the Master's stride, almost but not quite the same as her father's. She was already moving when she heard his voice, courteous and indistinct, answering some query put to him by a colleague. Quickly she jammed herself into the gap between the bookcase and the window. Her reflection was dim on the rain-streaked glass, and there was no room for her to reach for the ion bonder without being seen. The door swung open. She heard brisk footsteps cross the carpet towards her hiding place. _Hold still._ The words came to her in the Doctor's voice. She missed the pressure of his hand upon her shoulder.

Seconds crawled. It was not like the Master to abstain from prey in his sights. She waited, waited longer, and finally steeled herself to step out from her hiding place. She was not entirely surprised to find the room empty. She ran for the door, half expecting to crash into him on the other side. In her haste, she nearly upended two professors whose shocked reproaches followed her around the corner.

"Too close," she said, exhaling. Her search had been futile. Swallowing disappointment, she pulled up her hood and hurried outside to rendezvous with Tegan.

If she had stayed even a minute longer, she might have recognized another set of hurrying footsteps. Lasarti came marching down the hallway from the other direction. "Professor Daskalos," he called, reaching for the door handle. "Excuse me, sir, but I've a bone to pick with you."

* * *

The TARDIS had finally yielded to the Doctor's coaxing and consented to materialize in the cryo lab. Cables snaked from the console, out through the open doors and into the manifold at the base of Xertes' machine. She and the Doctor were working in tandem now, bent forehead to forehead on opposite sides of the drum, eyes darting between open maintenance panels and a tachyon meter that the Doctor had propped against the scaffolding. Xertes was attempting to replace drained batteries with fresh power packs from the TARDIS stores. The Doctor, racing to bleed off temporal energy, kept having to pause and recalibrate the stasis field to stave off a rupture. It visibly pained the professor every time there was an audible tap, click or spark from the Doctor's side of the machine.

Every now and then, another automated announcement disturbed their concentration. _"Evacuation window is now closed. QR Evacation Phase Three in one minute. Prepare to shelter in place." _

"Professor Xertes, I understand your reluctance to leave your invention in another's hands, but this really isn't necessary. My TARDIS can provide power until I've completed these adjustments. If you stay, and the containment field fails..." His face twisted in a sudden spasm. For a moment his hands stopped moving. The tachyon meter's graph shot up with wild oscillations that lasted for over a second before dropping back to its slow, ominous climb.

_"QR Evacuation Phase Three in forty-five seconds. Prepare to shelter in place."_

"Not a chance," Xertes said. "Being able to sense stray tachyons won't do us a whole boiling lot of good if you become impaired. Besides, if my work's at fault, then it's my job to fix it. Conversely, if it's your sabotage, I'll be damned if I leave you here to finish the job."

_"QR Evacuation Phase Three in thirty seconds. Prepare to shelter in place."_

"Professor, if you searched my history, then you must realize Gallifrey didn't send me. I'm not here to hinder your work. In fact, I'm very impressed." He was also appalled, but there was no point in antagonizing her further by telling her that he had not seen a time experiment this reckless since the Master had obliterated Atlantis while trying to capture a live chronovore. "My sole concern is to prevent a disaster that could claim billions of lives."

_"QR Evacuation Phase Three in fifteen seconds."_

"Indicators point that way," she conceded. "They also point to the fact that disaster follows wherever you land like a comet's tail flaring when it nears a star. Now stop yapping and get that synchochron recalibrated."

_"Five."_

_"Four."_

_"Three."_

"Professor—"

_"One."_

A rumbling thud, and another and another, shook the walls and floor as if a very slow rolling barrage was passing over and around them.

"That's done it," she said. "Dwarfstar alloy bulkheads. We're stuck in here for at least the next fourteen hours, unless hazmat nanodroids give the all-clear."

"Dr. Xertes, the TARDIS shielding can protect you, even with the doors open. Please. Leave this to me. There's no reason for you to risk exposure."

"You'll see reason enough if those power cables burp and battery power is all that's staving off field collapse." Xertes scowled at the adapter she was cobbling together. Bootstrapping new batteries onto old with live current running through them was tricky enough, but the power packs from the TARDIS were made to an alien standard that required different plugs and a power converter. "Ha. No wonder you Gallifreyans need so many lives; people must throttle you on a regular basis."

"Not usually fatally, why?"

"Nearly twenty years I've been working on this project, and _now_ a Time Lord's willing to let me see what makes your technology tick. Although I don't suppose you'd let me peek inside that time capsule's guts."

"I might. Whether she would is another question."

"Oh?" Xertes snorted. "An exam-shy patient, eh? That must make maintenance a challenge."

"My TARDIS is perfectly capable of self-repair," he insisted, "but that tachyon surge we passed through gave her quite a beating. I fancy she's a little skittish of you and everything connected to your device."

"Which, at the moment," Xertes said, "includes her."

"Yes, well." He patted one of the power cables. "I'll make it up to her later."

* * *

Normally the mild, soft rains of Nyssa's adopted home were relaxing, part of the daily rhythms of life outside the sterile walls of labs and time capsules. Today, overcast skies, wet lawns and dripping trees seemed dreary. For Nyssa this had been a lonely homecoming, arriving at the right place in the wrong time, with both Lasarti and her father close by yet cut off from her by a wall of time. At least she could get Lasarti back, but only by leaving her TARDIS family on the other side of that wall.

She re-centered her thoughts on the current problem. All attempts to collect damaging evidence had failed. Even if Tegan could persuade Lasarti not to trust the Master, he was still in danger. Mulling over that tactical impasse occupied her almost to the campus center. Crossing the pedestrian bridge leading to it, she heard splashing footsteps approaching from behind. She swung around to see Tegan pelting towards her along the ring road. Nyssa hurried to meet her, chiding herself for sending Tegan out without a jacket.

"Nyssa!" Tegan reached for her hands, skidding and gasping for breath. "Thank goodness. Nyssa, I've lost Lasarti!"

"What?" Heart quailing, Nyssa steered her away from the closest passersby. It wasn't only the light drizzle streaking her friend's cosmetics; she looked ragged. "You're not hurt?"

"No. But... but... Lasarti. He went to confront the Mas... Daskalos with what I'd told him. I tried to stop him, but—" Tegan hugged her in sheer frustration, words muffled against her shoulder. "Lasarti gave me the slip. Someone saw him go in, but he never came out. The room's empty!"

"Where?" Nyssa's hands tightened into fists behind Tegan's shoulders. "Not Daskalos' office! Oh, Tegan."

"What else could I do? Someone spotted you in the building. I was afraid you'd been trapped, too. Hey!" Tegan caught her sleeve as Nyssa disengaged and gently pulled away. "Where are you going? They could be anywhere by now."

"Not necessarily. Did you hear a TARDIS?"

"Huh?"

Nyssa spoke with focused calm. "The sound of a TARDIS dematerializing."

"No, I didn't." Tegan straggled after her, wiping wet bangs out of her eyes. "You mean, that's where he's hiding it?"

"It's the logical place. In fact, I think I saw it." Unconsciously, she quickened her pace.

"Nyssa, wait. You can't just barge in there. We've got to fetch the Doctor. Or," she said grudgingly, "at least Turlough."

"One more hostage won't help. And there's still a possibility that the Doctor will die, if we bring him into this." There was also a near-certainty that she could not help Lasarti without breaking the timeline or risking Tegan's life. Nyssa felt like she was juggling her heart in three pieces with the Master trying to snatch them out of the air.

"'Hostage?' No! No, Nyssa, you can't." Tegan threw herself forward, planting herself in her friend's path. "I'm not letting you do that. You can't save him. You _have_ to go to the Doctor, now. Time's going to be twisted up no matter what you do."

"Time." Nyssa stepped around her and kept walking. "Time itself is in danger. Didn't you feel it? The Doctor has bigger problems to worry about. I have to protect my family."

"Nyssa!" Heads were beginning to turn as Tegan stopped making any effort to keep her voice down. "Do you really think the Master will let Lasarti go in exchange for you? Why should he? Even if he did, you're an upgrade! Then all he has to do is wait for the Doctor to come after you!"

"I hope not." Nyssa slipped a hand into her pocket, feeling for the ion bonder. It was a most inadequate weapon. She remembered all too clearly the sickening sight of the Doctor's broken body beneath the Pharos radio dish. "And that's not what I intend. But if I fail, the fewer hostages, the better. You, too, Tegan. You've already had to endure quite enough for my sake."

"Uh-uh. You're stuck with me, unless you want everyone within earshot to know who you are. I don't need a fire alarm to attract attention, remember?"

"Tegan!"

"You can take your time paradox and shove it. Don't think I won't!"

"Very well." Nyssa caught her hand. "Then hurry. You're right, the Master could leave at any time."

Tegan sighed and trotted faster. "You do have a plan, right?"

"Not really," Nyssa said, "but then, most of the time, neither does the Doctor."

* * *

Turlough had hitched a ride on the medical cart back to the emergency care center, where orderlies had whisked Chrys away to be hooked up to an IV. Hathli, fretting and fidgeting in the waiting room, was working hir way through an entire roll of stress-bubbles waiting for news. Keeping Hathli company just long enough to confirm that Chrys had been stabilized, Turlough fled the sound of popping plastic and headed back to Vevik's room.

"Turlough!" Vevik was propped up, awake and smiling when he entered. "There you are! I was afraid you might depart before I had an opportunity to thank you. I understand that you kept me company last night in a manner less gratifying than one could wish."

Turlough's ears colored to clash with his hair. "It wasn't a problem," he said, folding himself into the windowseat next to the bed. "So how are you feeling?"

"Quite drained." Vevik's dark complexion was still blotchy and tinged with gray over cheekbones and forehead. He gave a wry chuckle. "All the more so after spending first period on vidlink with my father, persuading him not to sue Glaston's for food poisoning."

"Particularly since Glaston's wasn't to blame," Turlough said. "If your father's looking to sue, I'd save that Stimsi sampler and pay a visit to Professor Mikros over in pathology. Once you're feeling better, I mean."

Vevik's eyebrows arched. "This is not an idle suggestion, I take it."

"No." Turlough grimaced. "Vevik, a friendly word: don't be so trusting. I had a hunch about that free Stimsi sample. I asked a biochemist friend of mine to run an analysis. What she found was quite interesting. Your new Stimsi formulation just happens to degrade the active ingredients in hydromel. She passed all the data to your head pathologist, who may have the authority to do something about it."

"Ah." Vevik sank back against the pillow. "Yes, that could well explain my symptoms."

"Right. So, how would your father feel about taking on a megacorp and suing for damages?"

Vevik bared his teeth in a smile. "I think he might take it as a challenge. As would I."

"A braver man than I." Turlough sighed. "And I can't help feeling like my bad luck's rubbed off on you."

"On the contrary, Turlough, it is thanks to you that I am not dead. It seems I owe you another dinner."

Turlough's face fell. "Well..."

"...you are scheduled to leave Zarat shortly?" Vevik shrugged feebly against the pillows. "Ah, well, you warned me as much. Your journey has been too eventful for such a peaceful world to hold much interest. In which case—" His voice abruptly rose to a squeak, then a buzz, then silence. All the lights on the monitors beside the bed twinkled in a flicker almost too swift to see, while the instruments' bleeps sped up to a dog-whistle pitch. At the same time, Turlough felt an unsettling lurch from head to toe, as if not only his elbow but every nerve in his body had struck a sharp edge wrongly.

"Turlough, is there something the matter?" Vevik said, as if the previous jangling second and a half had never occurred.

"Damn." Turlough curled his fingers around empty air in a helpless gesture of frustration. "Yes. And the Doctor will be right in the middle of it, as usual." He dropped his chin into his hands. It was tempting to ride out the storm right here, well away from the source of the temporal disturbance, especially after seeing what had happened to Chrys. On the other hand, if the tachyon leaks were growing strong enough that even non-Gallifreyans could sense them, it might be prudent to seek shelter inside the TARDIS. Except... he raised his head, eyeing Vevik and the various drips and sensors trapping him in the bed like a fly in a web. There was no hope of moving him, even if he were strong enough to walk.

Oblivious to Turlough's dilemma, Vevik smiled reassuringly. "Then you must waste no time in idle chatter. Go! Aid your captain of adventure. But do drop by, if you should pass this way again."

Turlough hesitated, but he could do nothing more for his friend, at which point there was his own skin to consider. "I will. Feel better. And..." He wrung Vevik's hand. "Thanks for the company. I'm sorry to dash like this. I really do wish we had more time." Retreating, he felt his ears reddening again as the heart monitor's quickening bleeps baldly informed him of Vevik's response.

It was raining in when Turlough emerged from the building. The long trudge back was interrupted by no more time-twinges, but that was small comfort. He felt like a sapper crossing a minefield. Or perhaps just a sap. Why had Nyssa brought them here? And where was _she_ while the Doctor was busy trying to save her entire planet from extinction? Frustrated but resigned— it was hardly the first time he had been left out of the loop, after all— Turlough slunk back to the grove, avoiding the groups of evacuated scientists milling on the sidewalks. He resisted the impulse to snatch someone's umbrella.

Reaching the grove did not improve his mood. The TARDIS was gone. There was a square imprint in the needles where it had stood, framed by the swept pathway and sodden paper flowers, but even the art project placard dangling from its lamp had disappeared. Turlough groaned, making a desultory search of the ground in case the Doctor had left some note for his companions. Of course not. Which meant there was only one place the TARDIS could have gone: straight towards danger, as usual.

"_Why_ does he always do that?" Turlough asked of the dismal water falling in large, cold drips on his scalp. "And why does everyone always have to go running off?"

By the time he returned to the paved roof of the BHR complex, the area was completely deserted, ominously so. The air was filled with an obnoxious low whine like a wasp's, presumably some kind of alarm. The digital display next to the elevator bay was flashing * WARNING * QUARANTINE * RADIATION HAZARD * WARNING * QUARANTINE * RADIATION HAZARD *

"Wonderful," he muttered. He guessed that Dr. Xertes had simply picked a standard protocol to clear the area as quickly as possible, but the dire warning was still unnerving.

When he reached the nearest lift, he noticed with consternation that the doors were open, but there was no elevator car inside, just the cables and tracks of the exposed shaft. It was capped at ground level by a pair of metal bulkheads with only a narrow cutaway for the cables. As he stood gaping in disbelief, another bulkhead rose silently from the ground at his feet, sealing off the front of the pod. The same thing happened as he turned to the next one, and the next.

"Everything perfectly under control, eh, Doctor?" he asked the air sarcastically.

The TARDIS was down there somewhere, along with the only person who could fly it to safety through a temporal anomaly that might escalate to lethal levels at any moment. Turlough thought rebelliously that there were some justified grounds for murder, after all.

* * *

Nyssa listened at the office door for a moment before opening it silently. "Empty," she whispered.

Tegan followed her in with trepidation, shutting the door behind her. She nodded and obeyed as Nyssa motioned for her to lock it. Nobody else needed to be caught up in this. She turned slowly, searching for any clue that she might have missed on her previous quick peek inside. Apart from the singular lack of clutter, there was nothing to suggest anything amiss. Nyssa made a beeline for the looming metal bookshelf. She raised a hand, brushing one of the volumes gingerly, and yanked her fingers away.

"That's it?" Tegan said, giving it a baleful look.

"He's still here." Nyssa cast about herself, pounced on the workstation's power cord, and gave it a sharp tug to yank it free. "Tegan." She motioned towards her friend's feet and gestured towards the floor at the base of the camouflaged capsule.

Tegan squinted hard, frowning as she deciphered the mimed hand signals. "Not much of a plan," she muttered, bending to remove her mud-spattered shoes and set them where Nyssa indicated. The pointed heels jutted upwards like oversized caltrops.

"Tegan, we need to search the room," Nyssa said in a normal tone of voice. "Lasarti's prototype has to be hidden around here somewhere."

Dread growing, Tegan began to circle the desk, checking under the furniture, tugging on locked drawers and opening cabinets. "What's it look like?"

"Most likely, an oblong box with a keypad along the top and an array of electrode-tipped wires extending from a junction on its side." Ion bonder in hand, Nyssa was surreptitiously affixing the cable's ends to the wall on opposite sides of the bookshelf at knee height. Tegan tried not to look in her direction, loudly rattling a case of memory chips as she lifted it up and peered into the desk drawer.

"Please, my friends, dispense with the charade. It's not here, as you already know." They looked around wildly as the Master's hateful, disembodied chuckle filled the room. Nyssa flinched away from the bookshelf just as he stepped out of it. The Master already had his Tissue Compression Eliminator trained on Tegan. The black, tubular-shaped weapon with an enlarged head should have been the butt of rude jokes, but knowledge of what it could do made it even more terrifying than a gun.

Heart in her mouth and the nightmare image of her aunt's shrunken body in her mind, Tegan threw herself to one side, plunging behind the desk. She missed the moment when his mocking smirk changed to a dead-fish gape as he stumbled over her discarded shoes and the tripwire. Darting in, Nyssa kicked the weapon from his hand. Tegan rushed forward to help as the tiny woman fell upon him like a kitten pouncing a large dog, landing astride his back as he hit the carpet. He heaved under her, throwing her off-balance as she brought her cupped hands down to box his ears. Tegan made a dive for the TCE rolling across the floor. By the time she had come up with it, the Master had twisted, eel-like, and clamped onto Nyssa's wrists. She was thrashing furiously, trying to dislodge his grip, but it was an uneven battle.

"Let go!" Tegan snapped. "Or I shrink that swelled head of yours!" Didn't Nyssa have a weapon, too? Tegan saw it on the carpet by her friend's knee and quickly shifted her gaze back to the Master.

"What, and kill us both?" The Master's sneer tempted Tegan to make good her threat. "Nyssa, my dear, I wonder that you still associate with such cretins." He grunted as she rammed her elbows hard against his chest.

Tegan circled the desk warily, tilting the weapon upward. "All right, then, let's see what it does to your TARDIS."

The Master gave a derisive snort, but he wrestled Nyssa to her feet, all the same. He was using her as a shield.

Tegan shifted her aim above their heads, wishing she knew the weapon's cone of effect. "I'm warning you," she growled. "Nyssa's a tough lady. Get your grubby mitts off, or I shoot on a count of five... four... three..." She sought out her friend's eyes, frantically willing her to understand.

Nyssa was still twisting in the Master's arms, but Tegan thought... hoped... she saw a nod.

"Miss Jovanka!" the Master snarled. "You will obey—"

"One," Tegan said, prayed, and depressed the button, aiming at the top third of the Master's TARDIS. Nyssa dropped like a snapped stage weight, catching the Master off-guard. Unfortunately, he went down on top of her. There was a red ray, a flash, a ricochet off some invisible barrier, and Tegan ducked instinctively as one of the ceiling light panels, now the size of a paper ticket, fell from its frame and dropped onto the desk between her and the Master in something of an anticlimax.

"Give that weapon to me," the Master said, wrenching one of Nyssa's arms behind her back. "You _will_ give it to me. Give it to me, Miss Jovanka."

Tegan found herself stepping forward as the room began to recede.

"Tegan!" Nyssa said, sharp and fierce.

"Up yours, Prof!" Tegan said, snatching her hand back and glaring. "This is for Auntie Vanessa!" She aimed the TCE again, more confident now that the Master was sitting atop Nyssa and above her.

His eyes widened. "_No!"_ He pushed off and lunged at her.

Just at that moment, Tegan's instep came down on the upturned heel of one of her own shoes which had been kicked across the floor during the struggle. The stabbing pain threw her off balance. She had just enough presence of mind to open her hand so as not to shoot Nyssa by accident as she lurched forward. The TCE hit the carpet and rolled away.

He set his boot on it and stooped to retrieve it. "So," he said with a predatory gleam in his eye, "Perhaps I should _eliminate _these tiresome distractions, Nyssa?"

"I'm taking your TARDIS," she snapped behind him.

Tegan's eyes widened as she stepped backwards through the bookshelf, disappearing into its camouflaged surface. The Master registered Tegan's horrified expression and whirled, charging after her.

"No!" Tegan cried. "Nyssa!"

The Master vanished as well. As Tegan started to follow, a dreaded wheezing racket filled the air. She ran towards the ugly bookcase as it faded from view.

"Nyssa." She shuffled into the empty space like a sleepwalker, hands outstretched. Her palms found only blank, ordinary wall. She slumped against it, propping her forehead on her knuckles as the tears began to fall. "Oh, no. Nyssa, _I'm_ all heart; you're supposed to be the brains! I never should've let you. We should've gone to the Doctor. Oh, _Doctor._"

Chilled, wet, and shaking, she collected her shoes and limped to the door.


	10. Ten

"So, this is what you do for a living, hm?" Xertes said, face pressed dangerously close to open wiring as she inspected her jury-rigging for faults. "Hopping from planet to planet, sticking your nose wherever it's not wanted, and mashing other people's noses in their messes?"

The Doctor was too intent on his work to give a proper response. His bland face was knitted with concentration. Between the dizziness caused by tachyon leakage and the stress of trying to manipulate extreme forces that this equipment was ill-equipped to handle, he had misplaced his usual affability. Nor was Xertes much inclined to small talk. With a muttered prayer, she sealed the final junctions and rerouted the current through the new batteries. Nothing exploded. Letting out a breath that was halfway between a sigh and a whistle, she jumped down from her stepstool. "There. I think that should do it."

"It's incurable, you know, wanting to help," he said at last. "You seem to have a touch of it yourself. And I'm afraid I take a fancy to nearly every world I come across. Bad habit. But Zarat... lovely planet, difficult not to like. It would be a shame to lose it."

"Well, that's true enough. But you don't fool me, _Doctor_; I'm sure my colleagues over in psychology would have a field day with your aliases." Glancing over at the tachyon meter, she grunted. "You're losing ground, Time Lord. Move over. I'll bleed off the temporal energy while you wrangle that containment field."

"Professor, please—"

There was another nauseating time-ripple. One of the couplings by the Doctor's knee let go with a loud pop as its breaker tripped. Xertes crumpled, catching herself on hands and knees.

"Dr. Xertes!" Blanching, the Doctor dropped the tool he was holding and crouched at her side. "Time's up, professor; into the TARDIS with you."

A buzzer sounded on the tachyon meter. Was it his imagination, or had Xertes' salt-and-pepper hair gone a shade whiter? She was still conscious, but the skin of her hands was shriveled and dry, and she was barely supporting her own weight. Lodging her in the TARDIS might be a death sentence if she had taken a hit of too many days without water. "I beg your pardon, change of plans," he said, unceremoniously hoisting her and carrying her towards the exit. She was a rather stout woman, but luckily not very tall. "A few stray tachyons never hurt anyone," he said, "but temporal nanoleaks can ruin your whole day. You've earned a week off. Doctor's orders."

"Doctor... stop. _Idiot._ Containment field..." she coughed.

"Not to worry. It should hold for a little while without supervision. Which of these cryo tubes is human-certified?"

Xertes did not answer. Her body sagged as deadweight, arms loosening around his shoulders as she lost consciousness. Stumbling to the far side of the room, the Doctor scanned the few tanks still in operation. There. The one in the corner stood empty. He made a desperate scramble to unseal the capsule, wrestle Xertes inside, and activate the suspended animation sequence that might preserve her until help arrived. Or it might kill her, in her weakened state. The sensor readouts looked hopeful, at least. If he was interpreting them correctly, the bioscans showed readings within an acceptable range, barely.

The tachyon meter's alarm recalled him to his task. Hurrying back, the Doctor found that the containment field had indeed deteriorated during his brief absence. Gritting his teeth, he dove back in, sensing the time stresses inside the shielding as an animal might feel the pressure drop before a hurricane. He had to concede that the odds stacked against him were stacking ever higher. There was one mixed blessing. While two of the three power cables to the TARDIS had tripped and broken their connections, Xertes' new batteries were holding steady. Of course, that would last only so long as accelerated entropy did not gain the upper hand.

"Time to cheat, I think," he said, prying a panel loose that most certainly should not be opened. Xertes was no longer there to defend her machine against reckless improvisation.

He realized that he was going to have to start triggering nanoleaks deliberately to reduce the strain. The Doctor prayed that the heavy shielding between this lab and the surface would protect those aboveground. Zarat had indeed caught his fancy, as the home of someone dear to him. And he was keenly aware that there were three good friends among those he was fighting to save.

* * *

The Master lunged at the small figure bent over the console, palms mashed against the dematerialization switch. There had been no time to familiarize herself with a different interface, so Nyssa had simply pounced the first controls she recognized and flung the ship backwards in time. There was a vertiginous shudder as the Master's TARDIS broke free of the temporal disruption.

"That was unwise," he said as he dragged her away. "Most unwise. I now have everything I came for."

"Except the Doctor," she said, straightening with stiff dignity.

"Ah, yes." He gave a mocking bow and applied himself to the controls, inputting new coordinates. "The Doctor. Well, I'm sure he'll be along shortly."

Nyssa wrapped her arms around herself and scanned her surroundings. A silvery-gray heap near her feet gave her a start, but it was only an android— a mirroring-therapy android, in fact, probably Dr. Crane's. Devoid of camouflage, it lay crumpled in a boneless sprawl with its head at an unnatural angle, staring up at her. She turned away. As her eyes adjusted to the dark but spacious control room, she found herself gazing up at a nightmare from her distant past. She stifled a gasp. Hidden in shadow, a web of black metal struts and silver wires spanned one corner of the polygonal chamber from floor to ceiling, forming an irregular star-shaped polyhedron. Suspended in its midst was a spread-eagled figure, dressed in the coveralls and half-cape native to Zarat. Lasarti's tousled black hair covered half his face, and his mouth was slack and open. Fitful movement beneath his lids spoke of agitated dreams, but otherwise he was deathly still.

She had guessed he was here, but not how. It took every measure of willpower not to run into the web and try to pull him free. But she knew the Master was watching her eagerly for some outburst of emotion, and he would block any such attempt. "_Why?" _she demanded.

"Really, my dear, I must thank you for drawing my attention to Lasarti's dream-research. But I fear that the paper you co-wrote with your _partner—_" he twisted the verbal dagger— "demonstrated a deplorable lack of imagination. Such a waste. I shall unlock the device's true potential."

She watched, seething, as he sauntered past her and maneuvered gracefully between the struts of the Hadron web. He went to a sleek podium, to which had been bolted a makeshift control box whose basic design she had recently described to Tegan. Leads snaked from it into the larger apparatus, turning the web into a giant amplifier for Lasarti's prototype. The Master's black-gloved hands danced over the oneirometer's dials and switches as if taunting her. His victim's faint groan went to her heart.

"Open your eyes, boy. I am the Master, and you are my servant. Look down here. _Look._"

Lasarti's eyes flickered open, glazed and fearful as the command jerked him violently from delta sleep. He gazed down at them, uncomprehending.

"Release him," Nyssa said. "He's of absolutely no use to you. He's no prodigy." The last person she had seen trapped in that terrible web so many years ago was Adric, the Doctor's brilliant young companion, serving as the central processor for a sophisticated matter projection system.

"Do you think so little of your intended, my dear?" The Master adjusted a dial, and the young man gave a weak cry. "Lasarti, allow me to introduce to you my daughter, Nyssa. A time traveler like myself... and your future wife. In one future, at least."

Nyssa could practically feel the tides of time dragging the sand out from underfoot. Or, worse, tugging at her children. "Release him," she said again. "You don't need him."

"Indeed. Thanks to you, his usefulness is at an end. Your psychic sensitivity will make the machine even more powerful. Strong enough to contact the Doctor's mind across time and space, once we have corrected the design flaws, perhaps?" He spread his hands, encompassing the complex interlocking struts without quite touching them. "Planting unconscious suggestions, occluding memories, altering them or implanting new ones—your husband's preliminary research suggests a multitude of profitable avenues for study. And you, my dear Nyssa, will help me perfect them."

"No!" She saw pain-fogged eyes shift towards her. Bracing herself against the edge of the console, she tried to steady her voice, reaching out. "Lasarti, find a focus. Reach for one thing in your mind. Augmented hypnosis is still hypnosis. _Fight him._"

"Save your breath. He is subservient to my will, suspended halfway between sleeping and waking." The Master closed a switch and turned back to her. "Well, now. I see by your face that we are long overdue for a family reunion. And perhaps you would like to formally introduce me to this fine young man before we bid him farewell?"

She pressed her lips together, measuring the distance as the Master stalked towards her. Guessing at the height of his kneecaps, she struck out with her right foot. At the same moment, a cold, unyielding fist closed around her left ankle and yanked her leg out from under her. She fell badly, hitting her head against the edge of the console as she came down. Stunned, she was barely aware of being lifted and carried, none too gently, by two pairs of arms, black and silver. As her consciousness faded, she heard a young man's voice in the back of her mind, indistinct and halting, humming the melody of a frivolous old showtune as sincerely as if it were a charm against demons.

_Because I like... your... smile..._

* * *

Someone was stroking her hand, slow and soothing. Her fingers felt too small, too smooth.

"She's coming around, my lord."

"Thank you, Sabian, that will be all." The raspy warmth in the older man's voice brought an answering leap from her heart. Nyssa opened her eyes at once.

She found herself lying on a mattress of woven rushes and ferns, cheek pressed against the smooth scrollwork of a briarwood bedframe. Deep-throated windchimes sang low and sweetly in the distance. Birdsong, a bubbling chorus of dagtails and crested avars, spoke of dawn not far off. She heard the shift and sway of heavy canvas, the flutter of leaves stirred by a gentle night breeze. Tree branches cast moon-shadows on the walls and pitched roof of the spacious, airy pavilion. Candlelight twinkled down through the cutwork glass of a great lantern wrapped around the tent's central pole like a lotus-shaped chandelier. All this she took in peripherally. Her gaze was enthralled by the warm glow illuminating the white beard and kindly eyes hovering over her.

"Father!" She tried to sit up, but her limbs would not obey. There was a low throbbing ache at the back of her head, and her scalp tingled as if hairs were being tugged all over. "Oooh."

"Welcome back, Nyssa." Tenderly, he drew her into a sitting position. "Slowly. The fever has passed, but you are still very weak. The good Doctor returned you to us just in time."

The boy who had spoken earlier was circling them somewhere out of sight, humming under his breath. The clumsy tune was somehow more reassuring than her father's voice, although that, too, was a desperate relief to hear.

"The Doctor?" she said, coming more fully awake. "Where is he?"

"The dreamer is gone," said a silvery voice. "Back to the stars and his time-ship. It was kind of him to look after you for so long."

Nyssa turned her head and recoiled against her father. A birdlike woman in dark robes with a waterfall of flax-colored hair was beaming at her with the same tender smile as her father. There was an earthly warmth about her, and yet something was off. She seemed to be sitting in an isolated patch of moonlight. The glimmer of her skin, the highlights in her hair and the ring upon her finger were silver-white, not lantern-gold. It was this woman, Nyssa realized, who had been holding her hand as she slept. "Who... who are you?"

"Oh, my poor darling." Gray eyes like Nyssa's turned beseechingly to Tremas.

"Nyssa, Nyssa," he said. "Don't you recognize your own mother?"

"Mother!" Everything snapped into focus. The loving smiles of both her parents were almost too much to bear. The girl found her father raising her from the bed as lightly as a puppet while the lady came forward to wrap them both in an exuberant embrace. "Mother. I never thought to see you again." Nyssa felt curiously disembodied, stretched between joy and some other emotion she could not identify. The tingling beneath her scalp was becoming distressing, like an acupuncture session gone wrong. "What... what's happened? Where am I?"

"In our summer garden," the lady said. "Tremas thought the fresh air might revive you."

"On Traken," he said in a whisper that was a caress. "You're home, daughter. You're safe."

"_Traken_." Nyssa's eyes welled up, but she could not remember why.

Again, she was soothed by an unobtrusive song more sensed than heard. Their pageboy was no great minstrel, but the unsophisticated, alien melody made her smile. Resting her chin on her father's shoulder, she sought a glimpse of the dark boy bustling about in the shadows of the pavilion, straightening cushions and sweeping out leaves that had drifted in across the carpet. The youth's drawn face was half hidden by dark hair falling in straggling ringlets over his eyes.

Her discomfort was becoming more difficult to ignore. It felt like a swarm of burrowing insects, tunneling between her brain and her cranium. She bit back a whimper, trying not to alarm her parents. The boy looked up, brow furrowed, and returned to his duties.

When she opened her eyes again, bright daylight was coloring the pavilion walls and roof a pinkish gold, laced by blue tree-shadows. The drowsy afternoon susurrus of birds and insects replaced the boy's intermittent humming. She was seated at the mosaic-topped round table that she and her father had built when she was younger, its crazed top an uneven surface for wooden panniers of fruits and cheeses and home-baked bread. Her mother swooped over her shoulder to plant a cup before her that steamed with the delicious scents of blended herbs. Nyssa inhaled, raised the cup in both hands and peeped over the rim, meeting the laughing eyes of her father.

"Cricket?" he was saying. "A curious name. Is it a game played with insects?"

"N-no," she said, dragging her mind back to the conversation. "With a hard, red ball and a wooden bat. The Doctor has a whole closetful of them in his TARDIS. And those silly jumpers, too; they're part of his uniform." As she spoke, her eyes fell on a cricket bat propped against the centerpost of the tent.

"And where does he play this... cricket? In his TARDIS?"

"No, on Earth. It's his favorite planet."

"Earth." Tremas leaned forward, steepling his hands on the table. "And where, exactly, on Earth?"

"Well..." She swallowed. She had lost sight of the boy, which troubled her. She could no longer hear his voice.

Mother, standing behind her, placed her hands gently on the girl's shoulders. "Your father and I are very keen to hear about your travels, Nyssa, and of this Doctor who fostered you so well."

"Indeed. Tell us, Nyssa, was there any place on Earth to which the Doctor was especially drawn? A home away from home, so to speak?" Father's hypnotic voice lulled her into a dreamy reverie, although the striations of pain inside her head were growing worse.

His query prompted her to recollect a poem that she had heard the Doctor recite from time to time. _Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn..._ "Stockbridge," she said. "An English village. There were thatch-roofed houses and a pub and an inn and a post office set around the village green. That's where they erected the spring May Pole and played cricket in summer and autumn."

"Oh, that sounds lovely," Mother said. "I can almost picture it, when your eyes shine so." And indeed, it seemed to her that she could hear the crack of the bat and cheers of _Six! _from unseen spectators. The smell of green grass wafted into the pavilion. Then scent and sound withdrew, leaving her with a vague sense of melancholy, like spoiled endings._Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn..._

"And these houses," Father pressed. "What were they like?"

"Old farmhouses, mostly. Plank floors, wooden beams and white plaster walls, with a roof made of heavy thatch baled and blooming by midsummer. Only a few rooms, but a ground floor and a loft." The pavilion itself seemed to mimic her words: the walls were whiter now, the corner-posts were darker, and the carpet had been replaced with floorboards.

"What quaint, primitive architecture," said Mother.

Father gave a strange smile. "So, the Doctor fritters away his time in a human village for entire seasons. How careless of him. And what does he do there when winter comes?"

"Winter?" She flinched. The pain was making it hard to think, banishing smoky memories of a parlor with a roaring fire and two stuffed armchairs and a tea service set for one. _Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen..._

"Shhh, my darling," said Mother, settling on the trestle-bench beside her and taking her hand again. "Does it hurt to remember?"

"N-no... yes, but no. Winter is when he... when he rests. The snow piles up outside, all around the house and the barn and the trees in the forest beyond..." She remembered black bare trunks against the stark white, the weight of the Doctor leaning heavily on her, a weight like unshed tears, the crunch of their footsteps in the barren snow... _And desolation saddens all thy green.._.

The boy's far-off humming came again to her, oddly distorted by a crackle like static or a torch lighting up. The playful jingle poked fun at the Doctor's pompous, somber poetry. And yet, in a curious way, the poem and song were akin. Both seemed more real, more true than her parents' voices. Why were Mother and Father so eager to learn of the Doctor's bolt-hole in Stockbridge? Why was she speaking so freely of it now, when she had never told Tegan of that secret haven? _Tegan._ Where was she, in all this? Had Tegan accompanied the Doctor when he brought Nyssa home to Traken? Had they said goodbye properly this time? Had she met Mother? And how could Mother even be here, when— when—

Seized by an abrupt, violent impulse, Nyssa dug her fingernails into the woman's palm. The lady's tranquil expression did not alter in the slightest, although the attack should have drawn blood. "Mother is _dead,_" the girl said, angry and desolate. "And how can the Doctor have brought me back here, when I saw Traken—"

"Nyssa, Nyssa," Tremas said, rising to his feet. Her head was throbbing now, as if the insects had turned into jagged filings of heated metal. "Forgive us, child. We've confused you with too many questions. You need more rest." Her mother had pulled up a reclining chair. Father lifted her from the trestle-bench and settled her in it. Taking a blanket from his wife's hands, he bent to tuck it in, wrapping the edges snugly around her forearms and the arms of the chair.

_"No!_" Nyssa squirmed and fought, suddenly repulsed by the silvery woman's inhuman smile and her father's broad, toothy grin. _One only master grasps the whole domain..._

Smiles. She had liked his smile once. No longer.

"And you are not Father," she said, enunciating each word with bleak, quiet clarity. The agony was growing unbearable, but she held his eye. "Nor are you master of anything: not Traken, not Earth, not the Doctor, and certainly not me_. _Traken is mine; it was never yours. Get _out!_"

Her childhood playhouse tore itself apart with a loud crack of tearing canvas. It felt like her own skull had been ripped in two. She came up gasping, thrashing, pushing against the hands that held her. A snarl at her ear made her freeze.

"Be still, my _lady_." He laced the title with ironic, mocking courtesy. "Hadron power lines are lethal to the touch." She realized that her outthrust hand was a finger's breath from a strut carrying live current; its charge was lifting the hairs on her skin. She went limp, letting her arm drop. With a dismissive snort, the Master raised his eyes to address someone standing behind her. "Could you make any sense out of all that pretty prattle, Kamelion?"

"Yes, Master," came a metallic voice. "I was able to collect several key images that may prove suitable. More data will enhance the simulation."

"Excellent," the Master said. "We will use them to infiltrate the Doctor's mind. Shortcuts, weak points, _sentiment: _bait to lull him into his insipid, primitive fantasy. We'll need his own memories to flesh out the cage, but it's proof of concept. A useful start. And her mind is better able to withstand the feedback than the boy's. I think we may now dispense with young Lasarti's services."

Nyssa stirred weakly against the rigid chair to which she was bound by one wrist. Her scalp still prickled with residual energy from the electrodes that had torn loose. Lasarti hung directly above her, his face in shadow. Her mind was too clouded to think clearly, but she knew her half-formed idea was desperate, possibly suicidal. If the chair was metal or the android's skin was too conductive, the current could kill her. And she had no way to know what a short circuit could do to Lasarti. But this was her last chance to act. Pushing off against the Master's body, she threw herself backwards, crashing into Kamelion's shins.

The android teetered. There was a metallic shriek as it touched the power lines. Nyssa's whole body jerked with the residual jolt, but she landed on the floor, not against the web or the unfortunate robot. The Master gave an incoherent bark of rage and turned away, twisting dials on the oneirometer to reduce the power. Above him, Lasarti took a convulsive breath, writhing weakly against his bonds. He was awake. She thought she saw his lips moving in a silent mantra. He must be using one of his grandmother's old showtunes as a focus. An image came to her: Lasarti's lanky figure bent over a crib, soothing the cries of a colicky baby with that kindly voice that made him such a good therapist.

"Kamelion, step away from there!" the Master said. "Damage report!"

The inhuman voice buzzed like a dying speaker. "Status... status... status... error. Error. Reset initiaaaaaaateeeeeeeeedddddd—" It trailed off in a rattle of static that continued to whine like a jammed intercom.

"Return to the lab," the Master said irritably, jabbing a finger towards the inner door of his TARDIS. "Full shut down. I will deal with you later."

Still buzzing, the android obeyed, exiting the room on unsteady legs.

"And as for _you,_" the Master said, stooping to set a gloved hand around Nyssa's throat, dragging her and the chair upright, "That was foolish." He returned his attention to the strap around her wrist, giving it a savage yank. "Tell me, Nyssa of Traken, how exactly would you like me to dispose of your beloved's body?"


	11. Eleven

Probabilities collapsed into mere seconds as Nyssa searched desperately for a way out, remembering the Doctor's credo that the slimmest chance could be turned to one's advantage. She yanked her unbound arm away as the Master reached for her wrist to secure it. Glancing up, she found Lasarti's frightened eyes locked onto hers. She could see the stuttering rise and fall of his chest, near panic mirroring her own. Almost she wished he were still swaddled in dreams, unaware of the guillotine. And yet—

Dreams. A way.

Twisting like an unruly patient to keep one hand free, she gave Lasarti a firm smile. _Help, _she mouthed. Her gaze flicked to the black-clad figure stooping over her. _Distract._

"Enough_,_" the Master said, pressing a thumb against the side of her throat. Her field of vision began to shrink. "I can simply render you unconscious, if you intend to be diffic— _ah!_" His grip loosened. "Lasarti! Stop that at once!"

Nyssa felt it, too, an excruciating sensation like a pole-axe driven straight into her vitals. Her medical mind identified it as a kidney stone, or the memory of one. The rest of her wanted to curl into a helpless, writhing ball, dig out the foreign body with a blunt spoon if only the agony would end. Instead, she punched the heel of her hand hard against the Master's chin. His teeth clacked together as his head snapped up and back. He was already recovering as she reached across her body to the pocket he had been too arrogant to search. Green light flared. She saw the beam reflected in his eyes just before he stiffened, face frozen in an affronted sneer, and fell across her legs. Heart pounding, she crawled out from under his deadweight and unlatched the strap cutting into her wrist. The stabbing pain began to ease. She rose just in time to catch Lasarti's chin in her hands as his head lolled forward.

His voice was barely audible. "Can I stop concentrating now?"

Nyssa checked the urge to stand on tiptoe and kiss him. "Yes. End of session."

Silence. The Master's TARDIS was quiet and sterile, no soothing hum of life to break the stillness, only Lasarti's ragged panting. Nyssa allowed herself a moment to simply _be_, catching her breath and gazing up and back across the years to an unlined face she had fallen in love with almost forty years ago, wiped clean of all their shared history. She could feel his pulse pounding under her thumbs, the clammy sheen of sweat on his cold skin. Her fault. The Master had learned of his existence while hunting for her. Now she knew how the Doctor must feel every time a companion was threatened for his sake.

Lasarti blinked down at her. "Why, hello." A shiver passed over him. "Ow. Needs refinement before it's ready for human trials. Could I trouble you to unhook me?"

"Hold on." She patted his cheek. "I'd better power down first; I think you've had enough shocks for one day." The Master warranted a suspicious glance— two— before she turned her attention to Lasarti's prototype. Shadows obscured the settings, but what she could see was enough to set her teeth on edge. Gently, she eased the dials down to safe levels. "There. Is that better?"

"Yes." His eyes widened. "Yes! What did you do? The feedback's gone!"

"You'll work it out," she said with a tight smile. "And you don't want to know what he'd set it to."

He groaned. "The man's a sadist."

"I'm afraid so." With pitiless pragmatism, she stunned their would-be captor again. "Can you bear to wait a little longer? I've got to secure him. I don't want him waking while my back is turned."

Lasarti shrank from the bright light. "Uh... sure. I'm not going anywhere." Cowed, he added, "You didn't kill him?"

"No!" The question made her pause. She recalled a conversation that had haunted her for years, words exchanged with an assassin whose courteous but callous amorality had reminded her of the man now lying at her feet.

_"He's out there, a creature with my father's face causing what pain he can to others. Do you know how much that hurts?"  
"No. Honestly, my lady, I do not. But I do know how much better you would feel if that creature were dead. You must have vengeance."  
"How could I destroy the only thing I have left of my father?"  
"That is only a façade. You must kill him. That is the only way to let him go."_

Vengeance was pointless. But what of the deaths that piled up like autumn leaves wherever the Master trod? Her hands were no longer clean. Like the Doctor, she had killed as a last resort, with reluctant horror, to protect victims from attackers who could not be dissuaded or stopped by better means. She could end the Master's predations here and now.

And become an assassin. That was the boundary she had never seen the Doctor cross: he would fight in self-defense or to prevent murder in the moment, but never based on foreknowledge of evils yet to come.

"No," she said again, eyes darkening. "Try to rest. I'll be as quick as I can." She closed the Master's eyelids with a light touch for the man he no longer was, hooked her arms under his shoulders and began to haul him towards the inner door of the console room. "It was very well done, Lasarti. Thank you."

"Huh? Oh... the dream. Sorry. You felt that, didn't you?"

She laughed a little. "It's all right. I'm a mother. I've got some experience in pain management."

"I'll say. Personally, I was howling like a—" He broke off. "Hey! 'Family I don't know I have.' That was you, wasn't it? You sent Tegan to watch over me?"

"Yes. My best friend. I'm glad you've finally met her." Giving the Master's body a rough heave, she rolled him into the hallway and closed the door. Then it was time for the tool in her pocket to be set to its proper use.

"Tell her thanks, and... sorry I didn't listen." His bleary eyes followed her every movement like a child watching an exotic insect with mingled wonder and fear. "Nyssa. He called you Nyssa. We're to be married?"

Her heart sank. So, Lasarti had been conscious enough to overhear. The timeline had altered, despite all her efforts. Giving the ion bonder an angry twist, she set to work fusing the door to its frame. She suppressed a barbaric impulse to bond the Master's skin and clothes directly to the floor. He was not worthy of her attention, unlike the young man behind her. Pausing to look over her shoulder, she flashed a reassuring smile. "How do you do, Lasarti?"

"Rather poorly just now, to be honest, but at least the company has improved." A ghost of his impish grin flickered, tentative. "Er... aren't I tad young for you?"

"Indeed. You will be very young at heart, when we meet. And I was younger and prettier, if that matters."

"Not in the slightest, ma'am." She could practically hear the blush in his voice.

Oh, she had forgotten him like this, self-conscious and slightly terrified of her. "Right answer."

"I'm also housebroken, and I can even count to ten. But seriously, lads have a whole vocabulary for professors who look like you." He was beginning to relax, despite his nervous chuckle. "You're a scientist?"

"Naturally. You'll need someone who can follow your nattering, when you start dribbling on about psychometrics and lossless synthetic synaptic gaps."

He gave a delighted woof of laughter. "From nightmare to dream come true in an hour? Pinch me. No, scratch that, things are moving way, way too fast for me already."

She sat back on her heels, giving the molecular bonds a moment to cool. "About that," she said. "This isn't how we're supposed to meet, Lasarti. I was coming home many years from now, but an accident threw my ship back in time. I never meant for you to meet me– not now, not like this. But it amused Daskalos to tamper with the sequence of our lives."

"I don't much like your father."

"He's not really my father." Bracing herself, she lunged against the door with all the force she could manage. A few more bruises were worth the assurance that it was now, simply, a wall. "The Master, he likes to call himself. He's hurt me before, and now he's robbed you of chances, choices." Massaging her shoulder, she hurried back into the deadly web, chafing at yet another half-victory that nothing could amend. The bump on the back of her head was beginning to throb.

"You mean, I have to marry you, because I know I will."

"Exactly." She looked up, hands knotted at her sides as she scanned the restraints and wires ensnaring him. "Lasarti, I don't want our life together to be predicated on nothing more than the arbitrary dictates of a time loop. Your... spontaneity... was one of your greatest gifts to me. How _dare_ he rob us of that!"

"It does rather take away the fun of getting to know one another, doesn't it?" His mercurial grin drained away. "You know how to operate this thing, don't you?"

"Yes, but it's only a prototype." Resigned, she reached up to unstick one of the leads fanned across his temples. "I'm tempted to undo what he's done. But it's too dangerous. I might damage you."

Lasarti shook his head weakly, blocking her from peeling the electrode away. "Do it. Otherwise we'll always have _this_ hanging over our heads. And couples therapy isn't cheap."

"What if I occlude the wrong memories?"

He drew a shaky breath. "I trust you."

His naive faith touched her profoundly. Yet she was keenly aware of the threat of the Master stretched out on the floor with only one door between them. He might wake at any moment. But at the thought of him, her stubbornness flared. He would not steal their future. With a decisive nod, she reached for Lasarti's arms, hunting for the catches that would release him. "If you're sure. But let's get you down, first. I can't stand seeing you up there."

She needed his help to extricate him, in any case. Precious minutes ticked by while she slipped his bonds, resting his forearms against her shoulders until she could lower him to the floor. He radiated a young man's embarrassment as she manipulated his limbs and used a field medic's hold to catch and lower him into the chair. He slumped there, massaging circulation back into his hands and feet, while she reattached the leads on his scalp that had come loose. "All right," he said, with feigned nonchalance. "Let's get this over with. I don't mind forgetting the rest of today, but I'm starting to have second thoughts about forgetting you."

"For a little while." She squeezed his shoulder and moved to the podium, striving to order her tattered thoughts. _Focus. Reach for one thing in your thoughts._ The Doctor's patient tones echoed in her mind, meditation lessons he had taught her as a child to fortify her against psychic attacks. _Find a focus._ Of course! With swelling hope, she drew out the necklace hidden under her collar, unthreaded the blue crystal and placed it atop the oneirometer. _For luck,_ Tegan might've said.

"What's that?"

"Manussan sapphire." She picked up the dangling mesh of the secondary electrode net, realizing with a shudder that she must have been sharing it with the Master. "It stills the mind. It may help me concentrate. Are you ready?"

"Just... one thing." He suddenly looked very shy. "May I have a kiss to... unremember you by?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Incorrigible. No, Lasarti, you'll have to wait. Let our first time remain the first time."

"Damn." He pouted. "Well, I hope I was a good kisser, at least."

"Terrible," she said, eyes twinkling. "And so was I. More study was required. The project involved a protracted experimental phase, with much trial and error." Watching him for signs of discomfort, she activated the sleep inducer.

"Lovely." He leaned back, voice turning drowsy. "The scientific method as foreplay. One of us should write a paper about it."

"I would mention that I adore you, but it might be unhealthy for your ego." She watched his eyes drift shut. "Goodnight, Lasarti."

"See you... _Nyssa..._" He clung to the name with a beatific smile. "See you in my dreams."

* * *

Tegan closed the office door softly behind her, although she wanted to slam it off the hinges, had wanted to shatter everything breakable in the room before she left. But there was no time. She had to find the Doctor and Turlough. There had to be a way to track another TARDIS, especially the Master's. There must be.

The door vibrated under her fingertips. She heard, or imagined she heard, the ghostly wheeze of a TARDIS returning. Her eyes welled up again in despair and rebellion. "I'm not cracking up. I'm not." In the time it took to speak, she realized that the sound was more than wishful thinking. Was the Master coming back? _Left the kettle on,_ she thought hysterically.

She was going to kill him.

With that thought uppermost in her mind, she threw the door open with enough force to dent the wall and charged back inside with no plan at all. Seizing the desk chair and hefting it unsteadily overhead, she moved to stand belligerently before the bizarre shape of a Greek column materializing where the bookcase had been. The wait was maddening. Her arms started to shake. "Come _on,_" she growled, judging the best angle to bring the chair crashing down. If she could stun the Master, nip past him, get inside and shut the doors in time— hell's teeth, if she could only make sure he took her prisoner, too, so that Nyssa wouldn't be alone—

"Tegan?" Nyssa's voice had never sounded sweeter. "Tegan, it's me. You taught me the Charleston. Put that down and stand back, please."

Tegan dropped the chair with a crash, flinging her arms around the smaller woman when she emerged. "Nyssa! I thought he'd taken you away."

"He had." Nyssa leaned into her, fingertips digging into her shoulders in a way that made Tegan hold her tighter. "But his TARDIS has a fast return switch. Help me carry Lasarti?"

"Lasarti? You've got him! Where is he?"

"In there." Nyssa's fingers fluttered into what looked like stone. "I've barricaded the Master outside his control room, but I don't know how long the door will hold."

"Right." Without waiting, Tegan took the plunge and pushed into the column where she'd seen Nyssa's hand pass through. She narrowly avoided stumbling over the young man lying across the threshold. Chagrinned, she halted to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. She was in for a shock. An all-too-familiar shape reared out of the darkness, a cruel web spanning one corner of the room from floor to ceiling. "_Adric_,"she choked.

"Lasarti," Nyssa explained, too calm. Stepping between his feet, she bent and lifted his knees in a medic's practiced carry.

"Oh, Nyssa." Tegan followed her lead, hitching up his shoulders. There were a thousand questions she longed to ask, daggers of guilt needling at her. What had happened to him, to both of them? She could see Nyssa retreating behind that wall of reserve that sustained her in moments of crisis, but it couldn't quite mask her exhaustion, nor the disheveled telltales of a struggle. Just how much time had passed aboard the Master's accursed ship before Nyssa brought it back? How had she escaped his clutches? What if this was another trap, like the Master releasing a false copy of Adric to dupe them and send the TARDIS on a one-way trip to destruction? But no. Tegan couldn't, she_ wouldn't_ start doubting Nyssa. Shying away from that dreadful thought, she settled on, "Did you find Lasarti's machine?"

"Yes." Nyssa nodded towards the web. "Hooked into that."

"Ugh. Can't we take it with us?"

"No, but I've wrecked it." Nyssa waited until they had shuffled into the office and laid the boy on the carpet before she added in a confiding whisper, "And even if the Master rebuilds it, he won't catch the Doctor that way." She knelt to check Lasarti's pulse and lift his eyelids to examine his pupils.

"Poor Lasarti. How bad is he?" Tegan said, keeping uneasy watch. She almost wished the Master would show his face so she could hit it with the chair.

Nyssa looked up, eyes softening. "Don't worry. He'll be fine. A little disorientated, perhaps. I put him to sleep to disconnect him."

"Oh!" Tegan relaxed. "Well, that's all right, then. Except... isn't it going to be conspicuous lugging your sweetheart across campus? Not to mention heavy. No zero cabinet, no wheelchair—"

"We won't have to. I've set a trigger." She caressed his cheek, gazed at his sleep-loosened features for a long moment, then stood and stepped back into the illusory column.

"Hey!" Tegan said. "Don't go back in there!"

"I'll follow you," Nyssa promised. And then, startling Tegan with jarring incongruity— and yet who knew what habits Nyssa had picked up in her other life— she began to sing. "_...I guess I'll be a Joker. " _

There was a groan at Tegan's feet. _"Because I like... your..."_ Lasarti's eyes fluttered open. "Whoa."

"Welcome back," she said, tearing her eyes away from Nyssa's hiding place. "Heck of a place to work off a hangover."

"Hangover?" His groggy smile dissolved into sheepish mortification. "Well, I hope you enjoyed the party, anyway. Sorry I fagged out on you; you must think I'm a complete prat."

Tegan laughed. "Nice try, Romeo, but you don't have to pretend to remember; I'm not your date." She held out her elbow. "Come on. Let's get you out of here before Professor Daskalos turns up."

"Who?" Levering himself up on her arm, he looked around, perplexed. "This is Dr. Crane's office. Wait... no... he's on sabbatical, isn't he?"

She patted his shoulder. "Overwork, that's all. Up and at 'em! That fluffball of yours is probably getting hungry."

"Effy! Right you are. Oh, gosh, Daskalos_,_ how could I have forgotten? He's been trying to draft me for some pet project. Did you hear what he did to his seminar yesterday? I'd stay well away from that nutter."

"You can say that again," Tegan said, herding him casually towards the door. "And speaking of advice, remember that job offer I told you about? Here, I nicked a pamphlet for you... oops, that's the back. Ignore the photo; anyone could look like a bad clone of themselves after one too many all-nighters in the lab..."

* * *

"Well?"

"There you are." Tegan let out a puff of breath as Nyssa slipped from an alcove in the entryway of Lasarti's hall of residence. "You're getting pretty good at this spy stuff. Lasarti's all tucked in with that fluffball sitting on his head. Wish I could've brought you a picture. Are you sure he's all right? He was cracking jokes when I left, but he barely remembered me."

"I purged his short-term memory," Nyssa said. "Lasarti agreed it was for the best. I wish I could've stayed to monitor him, but under the circumstances..."

"_You_ did that to him?" Tegan stared at her in disbelief. "Rummaging around in his mind just like—"

Nyssa stared right back with an unfathomable, steely expression that made her flinch. Then Nyssa wilted and acknowledged the unspoken name with a ghost of a nod. For a moment, she looked rather closer to her human years. "Yes. Let's go."

Tegan bit her lip, already regretting her words. The sun had come out at last, burning through tattered clouds and warming her skin, but the daylight showed just how pale Nyssa was, apart from the dark circles under her eyes and a bruise mostly hidden by her collar. She was visibly preoccupied, pace picking up as if driven by some new, urgent mission.

"Hey! Where are we running off to now?" Tegan said.

"To find the Doctor. The Master doesn't usually have the patience to try the same trick twice, but you never know," she said. "We need to erect a defensive barrier."

"What, in his TARDIS?"

"No. Something the MASTER said..." She frowned and started to pull ahead. "Something to stop him returning to Zarat."

"How?" Suspicions prickling, Tegan jogged to catch up with her. "So you're going to tell the Doc what happened, after all? What can he do, anyway? Install a bug zapper to fry incoming TARDISes?"

"Exactly. This way."


	12. Twelve

"Nyssa, will you just _talk _to me? I was worried sick about you!_" _Tegan broke off. Between them and the grove where they had left the TARDIS, the lawn was thronged with people clutching tablets, pipettes, handheld devices, even potted plants. A hubbub of agitated conversation rose above the milling crowd. Circling security carts were attempting to keep them corralled. "Will you look at that? A nerd herd," Tegan said. "Another fire drill, maybe. Never a boring day around here, is there?"

"Evacuation of the hazardous research center, I think," Nyssa said, ducking behind a smaller building to come at the grove more discreetly. "Possibly the Doctor's doing."

"Yeah. If he's there, you can count on it." Tegan snorted. "Maybe we should be running the other direction." Occupied with keeping wet branches from slapping her in the face, she held her tongue until they popped out in an open area amidst the trees. "Hey! Didn't we park the TARDIS somewhere around here? I hope it didn't get towed."

"We did, and it wasn't." Nyssa barely broke stride, jogging past the remains of the art students' soggy decorations where the TARDIS had been. "The Doctor must have taken it."

"Taken it? Where? Nyssa, will you please wait up? Rabbits, there she goes again." Suspicions prickling, she struggled to catch up, heels sinking into the damp earth. Nyssa was shutting her out, which was not only unfair, but alarming. She wished she could stop thinking about that false Adric sent to sabotage the TARDIS while the real boy was being tortured in the Master's web. _The web was empty,_ she reminded herself. _I saw it with my own eyes. Nyssa is still Nyssa, and I've got to stop thinking like Turlough._

Speak of the devil. Beyond the edge of the trees, Nyssa was angling towards a bedraggled, spindly figure sitting forlornly on a bench._ Wet rat,_ Tegan thought, still sore at Turlough for abandoning their own resident nerd to be eaten by moss on the last planet they had visited. He unfolded like a tripod and shot to his feet. Tegan could not make out his greeting, but his caustic tones were sharp enough to carry over the irritating whine of an alarm blaring in the distance. She hurried forward, trying to make out their conversation.

"But that's what I'm telling you!" he blurted as Tegan drew closer. "The entire complex is sealed off! There's bulkhead doors all the way down the lift shafts. We're stranded up here, and the TARDIS is eight floors down in an underground bunker. There's no way to reach him."

"Turlough, stay calm," Nyssa said, turning away with an abstracted expression. "Let me think."

He gave Tegan a long-suffering look. "Nice of you two to show up, finally. I don't suppose either of you knows of a dark hole we can crawl into with enough shielding to protect us against a temporal explosion?"

"You're the expert on dark holes to crawl into, Turlough." She bit her lip. "Actually, I can think of one place, but it's not exactly safe," she said, looking at Nyssa. The Doctor was not the only Time Lord skulking about on this planet. "You don't suppose—"

"No," was the curt reply. "Give me a moment. I'm trying to remember something."

Turlough folded his arms and raised his eyes skywards. "By all means, take your time. I've always wondered what organ failure feels like."

"Will somebody explain exactly what's happening?" Tegan said, beginning to lose her temper. "The Doctor clammed up last night and wouldn't tell us a thing. Nyssa's gotten banged up somehow and is pretending she's fine. And with everything else that's been going on today, I almost forgot: I felt something really_ weird_ earlier, like that time warp we passed through when we crashed landed. Is that what this is about?"

"Well, I have no idea what adventures you two have been having, but here's what I know. The Doctor is down there." He jabbed a thumb. "So is the TARDIS. And so is somebody's pet science project. Every time it hiccups, it distorts space-time around it. Fast forward a few seconds, a few minutes, a few days, a few decades_..._ If the Doctor hasn't simply cut his losses and run, then he's trying to repair it before it ages everyone on this planet into extinction. He _might_ have left us the TARDIS to shelter in."

"Got it," Nyssa said, hopping to her feet. "I just hope they're using the same codes. This way."

Turlough and Tegan exchanged dubious looks and followed. At least she did not go far, although the droning alarm was louder and more annoying in the large paved courtyard where she led them. The sound echoed off the lift bays, planters and aerials scattered about the roof. Nyssa crossed to the far side, pivoted and peered at the central hub of lifts as if getting her bearings. She began to pace off an arc, counting flagstones under her breath, finally halting next to one of the circular paving stones staggered around the roof's perimeter. Kneeling, she began running her fingers over the surface.

"A way in?" Tegan said._ Or a trap,_ she thought, trying to catch Turlough's eye. She had been so taken up with this Lasarti business that she had forgotten last night's discussion: what if the time disturbances were another of the Master's games?

There was a faint pop when Nyssa pressed down on two small grey divots, almost invisible. At first Tegan thought nothing had happened, then she realized the lip of the roundel now extended an inch or two above the surface of the flagstone surrounding it.

"Don't be daft," Turlough said. "If this is an emergency ladder, it'll be sealed off with bulkheads like the rest of the complex. Otherwise it's not much of a quarantine."

"Hazmat team access," Nyssa said. "Help— uumph— help me lift it, please. The shaft is fashioned like a spiral stair. As the rescue capsule descends, bulkheads pivot into place above it and away just below it."

"So basically it's a giant toilet snake," said Tegan.

They bent to help her pry the hatch open. It flipped over with a crash, revealing the maw of a pipe barely wide enough for Turlough's shoulders. Handholds and footholds were cut into the walls. It was too dark to see how far down the pipe extended or what lay at the bottom.

"Oh, well," Tegan said. "Our day's never complete without at least one tunnel crawl, right?"

Nyssa swung her legs over the side. "There should be room for the three of us."

"With all due respect," Turlough said, "I've spent quite enough time cozying up to Tegan in ventilation shafts. Death by temporal burst may be quicker, or at least quieter. I'll wait outside."

"It'll be even quieter when you stop whinging," Tegan said. "Come on, Turlough. If that time whatsit explodes, the TARDIS may be our only chance." Without waiting for an answer, she clambered down after Nyssa.

He groaned but gave in, following her down and muttering about the tight squeeze. After a short descent, they found themselves wedged in what proved to be a cylindrical compartment barely wide enough to accommodate three people. Nyssa was typing a long string of numbers into an old-fashioned pushbutton keypad. She slammed her fist against the wall, depressed a larger button next to the keypad to reset, and tried again.

"Nyssa?" Tegan tried. "You said you needed to set up some kind of barrier, because of something that the M... that Daskalos said." She was mindful of Turlough's pricked ears. "Exactly what did he tell you?"

"Later, Tegan," Nyssa said, voice echoing strangely in the narrow metal chamber.

"Good grief. You sound exactly like the Doctor."

She wasn't even listening, or at least, she wasn't paying attention. "Thank you."

"That was _not_ a compliment!"

"Curious as I am about your mysterious goings-on," Turlough said, "I think we had better not disturb her. I don't fancy being trapped down here until doomsday. Most security systems only let you get away with a few failed passwords before they lock you out. Or in," he added, looking up at the patch of sky high overhead.

Tegan waited and stewed. At least the whine of the siren was quieter down here, although something was wrong with it along with everything else. Now and then it seemed to waver, rising or falling in pitch for a split second before returning to its monotone whine.

"Did you hear that?" Tegan whispered. The cramped space was making her feel light-headed; her stomach had just flip-flopped.

"Did you_ feel_ that?" Turlough whispered back. "That must be what was bothering the Doctor. The temporal leaks are growing worse."

"Well, my hair's gonna turn white if we're down here much longer."

"That's done it," Nyssa said. The circle of daylight winked out. With a slam of metal on stone above their heads, the compartment began to descend in a slow spiral. Every ten seconds or so, there was a muffled thud above or below their feet, the concussion of a bulkhead door rotating into position. The compartment was pitch black. Presumably, ordinary rescue crews would come equipped with torches.

"Now I know what a drill bit crossed with a jack hammer feels like," Tegan said. "Ugh! I just hope you know how to open the door at the bottom."

"Let's... not talk about that," Turlough said. Even in the dark, he sounded green.

"It's automatic," Nyssa said. "The trouble is, I can't be certain this is the right access point. This whole quadrant of the building was ripped out and rebuilt before I started work here."

"Funny that," said Turlough, not sounding amused.

"Great," Tegan said. "This car can go back up, right?"

"Yes." It was slowing. "However, exiting a contaminated area requires a higher level of authorization, and I may not be able to hack the codes. Here we are."

The car juddered to a halt. There was a nerve-wracking delay, a shriek of grinding metal, and the compartment rotated one more half-turn to reveal an empty corridor. They tumbled backwards like air cushions popping out of a tightly-packed shipping box. Tegan and Turlough stood squinting and shielding their eyes, waiting for their sight to adjust to the artificial lighting. It was a dead end, mostly blocked by bulky equipment hidden under plastic sheeting. An emotionless PA announcement had replaced the droning alarm, but it was not much of an improvement. "QR Quarantine Phase III. Please move to a secure area and wait for emergency teams to reach you. Repeat. QR Quarantine Phase III."

"Where to now?" Turlough said.

Another wave of vertigo hit them. It lasted for less than a second, just enough time for Turlough to yelp and clap his hands over his ears. After it was over, Tegan ran her fingers through her hair and raised her eyebrows at him in a silent question.

"I knew it," he moaned, mistaking her query for a fact. "Don't tell me. How old do I look? I've lost it, haven't I?" He patted the top of his head.

"You certainly have," Tegan said, breaking into a chuckle. "But your hair's fine."

"Very funny. I should tell you that yours looks quite distinguished now. But of course that would be a lie." The quip sounded rather forced, and his pale eyes were side wide that the whites stood out starkly.

Realizing he was well and truly spooked— who knows how long he had spent up on that bench fretting— she swallowed her next retort. "Nyssa?"

While they were trading barbs, Nyssa had squeezed past the barricade of lab equipment to a nearby T-intersection where a directory panel was flashing the same warning as the PA system in large block letters. "Show me the way to the cryo lab," she said.

The screen cycled through a series of different colors and languages, but gave no other response.

"Medical emergency clearance zed stroke ten alpha niner," she said. "Show me the way to the cryo lab." A map lit up with an illuminated path. "Good. Not far. This way."

Tegan groaned and followed as she took off again. "I've spent all morning running after her."

"Story of our lives," Turlough said. "Come on. At least we're not going to die in a torpedo tube."

To her vast relief, Nyssa had guessed correctly: bulkheads sealed off the corridors all around them, but just around the corner was a hallway very similar to one she remembered. Turlough pointed to the pressurized double doors halfway down. "That's the cryo lab," he said, hanging back. "Sealed, of course."

The door's hand sensor refused to respond, but another medical override did the trick. It took all three of them to drag the heavy doors open manually. As soon as there was a wide enough gap for her, Nyssa squeezed through, plunging into dead, stale air laced with a disturbing trace odor of long-decayed organic material. At least there was enough oxygen left to breathe — now, at least, with the doors unsealed.

"Nyssa, wait!" Turlough said. "It's dangerous."

"Something's gotten into her," Tegan fretted.

Nyssa did not need to be a telepath to feel her friend's concern beating against her back. But there was no time. It would take too long to explain what had transpired in Crane's office after Tegan had shuffled Lasarti away to safety. Nyssa was trying not to dwell on the Master's parting shot. She needed the Doctor's help, but she very much feared that he needed theirs.

The laboratory's lighting system and backups had failed, but blessed blue-white light illuminated the far end of the room, where complicated rigging surrounded what she assumed to be the source of the temporal disturbances. Whatever it was, the comforting silhouette of the police box stood between them and it. The time-ship's shielding might provide some slight line-of-sight protection. Unfortunately, its doors were facing away from them. Before she could start towards it, a feeble glow off to her left caught her eye.

"The TARDIS!" Tegan said. "At last."

"Wait." Turlough caught Tegan's shoulders as she started forward. "Get too close, and the time distortions could be lethal. You don't want to know what happened to the last person I saw cross the room."

"There's someone over here," Nyssa said, turning towards the lit cryo tube in the corner. "Still alive."

"Not the Doctor!" Tegan said, alarmed.

"Too short. I think it's Professor Xertes," Turlough said, peering past Nyssa at the still figure obscured by a thin white haze inside the tank.

"Tegan?" The Doctor's voice echoed out of the shadows. "Turlough? Nyssa? How on earth did you get down here?"

"Emergency medical access, Doctor," Nyssa called back with a surge of relief. "Are you all right?" Disregarding Turlough's warning, she shot across the room, feeling her way through the maze of equipment and keeping in the shadow of the TARDIS as long as possible.

"There's no time. Into the TARDIS, quickly now! Disconnect the console, toss the cables outside and close the doors. I'll join you shortly, after I've taken care of—" his voice turned gravelly and broke off for a moment. "Ah. Once I've finished up here."

"What are you up to, Doc?" Tegan said, marching towards the sound of his voice. "Ow!"

"Mind the cryogenic tanks," Turlough said. He sneezed at the fine powder of rust and decayed insulation kicked up by their footsteps. "Doctor, I don't suppose you can tell us exactly how long we're supposed to wait in the TARDIS while you finish saving the world?"

Nyssa needed no encouragement. Dodging around the police box, she saw the Doctor hard at work on one knee, surrounded by a jumble of cables, tools, and discarded casing strewn across the floor. She was relieved to see he was physically unchanged, apart from several days of stubble and a pallor colored unnaturally by the ominous bright lines zigzagging ever upward on the tachyon meter propped next to him. He was no longer paying attention to it, too engrossed in making minute but urgent adjustments to the exposed filaments glowing inside the open panels of Xertes' machine. His facial muscles were contorted and clenched.

"Stop!" he said, hearing her footsteps. "Don't... come any closer. Temporal energies in flux. Nyssa, if the HADS activates, take the TARDIS forward in time until it's safe. I'll find you there."

"HADS?" Tegan said, taking in the tableau as she joined Nyssa. Coming around the corner, Turlough gave both of them an exasperated look and dove inside to start carrying out the Doctor's orders.

"Hostile Action Displacement System," Nyssa said, distracted. "Doctor, wait. You can't keep this up for much longer. What happens if the device goes critical?"

His silence was answer enough. The Doctor was doing everything he could to maintain a dangerously unstable containment field; that much was clear from the readings on the instrument by his knee. His rigid back and shoulders were more eloquent than an alarm. A horrible feeling of déjà vu made her take a step closer to Tegan. In her mind's eye, she could see that black smudge creeping across the TARDIS viewer to devour the worlds of the Traken system one by one, her own planet the last to wink out. Now her second home teetered on the brink of entropy as well. "Doctor, there's five million people on this planet," she said. "We can't save ourselves and let them die."

"Do we get a vote on this?" Turlough called. A heavy cable end came flying out of the console room, bounced off Tegan's calf and flopped to the floor.

"Ow! Turlough, watch where you're throwing that!" Tegan said, hopping on one foot. "Can't we just bin the damn thing? I dunno, take it away somewhere so it can't hurt anybody?"

"Move it how?" Turlough said. "That's dwarfstar alloy. It must weigh as much as a city. Come on, you two, give me a hand in here."

"Well, then, what if—" and Nyssa's heart leapt at Tegan's magic word "if," which she had once said was the most powerful word in her native tongue— "what if the Doctor materializes the TARDIS around it, then chucks it into the time vortex? That's where we crashed into that shockwave, right? Maybe that was the thing blowing up!"

"Tegan, that's brilliant!" Nyssa said. "Doctor, if we jettison the room where—"

A buzzing alarm from the tachyon meter threw the Doctor into a flurry of motion. For several tense seconds he was weaving around Xertes' machine, adjusting dials and fiddling with fiber connections that were clearly not meant to be tampered with. Nyssa seized Tegan and backpedaled into the entryway of the TARDIS. They watched with helpless frustration while Turlough shouted at them to move so he could close the doors. For a few terrifying seconds, Nyssa thought the Doctor had lost control of the containment field. Then he dropped to his knees before the open panel where he had been working when they entered, and resumed his single-minded activity.

"Doctor?" Nyssa pleaded.

"Very well," the Doctor said, hoarsely enough to tell her just how close they had come to annihilation. "Tegan. Inside, now, no more arguing. Help Turlough. Nyssa, can you manage it? Precision short hop to surround it in a secondary room, _immediate_ jettison. Make absolutely certain you enclose Xertes' device in the same room you delete. And then—"

"Lateral jump to escape before the field ruptures. I understand." She mirrored his self-assured tone, shoving panic aside. This was a far more complicated maneuver than anything she had ever practiced under his supervision. He was gambling; he was throwing dice into a singularity and waiting for double sixes to pop out, and Zarat was doomed unless she could somehow live up to his lunatic hope. Despite the danger, she edged towards him. "The TARDIS will help. She's fond of me, you know."

"I know," he said, the sound of a smile breaking through the strain as he lowered his voice. "Take care of her, will you? Don't let the Time Lords melt her down for scrap."

"Doctor!"

"It's all right," he whispered. "_Go._ If I'm to die saving a planet, I couldn't think of a better one than yours."

An apology for Traken. She knew exactly what he was doing, and there was no time to debate false equivalences or even to say goodbye. Wrenching herself away, she dove for the safety of the TARDIS. There she moved to the console without a word to the others. She forced herself to focus on the job at hand, setting up a complex sequence of steps for the TARDIS to follow in near-instantaneous succession. Timing... they were out of time, and yet she had to allow for time itself to vary, not to mention dwarfstar's extraordinary mass... Her head was throbbing again, and she would have to check every command line twice; she knew she was not functioning at full mental capacity just now...

"So what's the plan?" Turlough said, hovering by the inner door as if debating whether to shelter further inside.

"Nyssa?" Tegan said, unscrewing the last cable and heaving it out the doors. "What did he say? What did he ask you to do?"

"Please don't distract me," she said. "If I get this wrong, we'll lose either the TARDIS or Zarat."

"Or the Doctor," Turlough said.

"No offense, but I hope he checks your sums before we take off," Tegan said.

Nyssa did not answer. She paused only once to take the ion bonder out of her pocket, give the bottom a twist, and set it down next to the door controls.

"She's plotting something," Turlough remarked matter-of-factly. "Just spit it out. The Doctor's trying to sacrifice himself again, isn't he?"

Nyssa's lips tightened. Her eyes were wet. It was not true that she never wept, but she needed to concentrate. She could not afford blurred vision right now.

"Nyssa," Tegan said, low and sharp. "The Doctor won't have time to get clear, will he?"

"I know."

"But what about the future you saw? Didn't we just go through all that rigamarole to make sure the Doctor still has one?"

"I _know._" Nyssa raised her voice, a stranger speaking through it. "Doctor, we're ready."

"Good luck!" the Doctor sang out. "See you shortly!"

"Turlough," Nyssa said, "Close the doors."


	13. Thirteen

"Right," Turlough said. "Let's get out of here."

"Don't you _dare!_" Tegan threw herself at Nyssa, grappling with her and hugging the arm that was reaching for the dematerialization switch. "Turlough, don't _you_ dare! Keep your filthy hands off those controls!"

"Tegan, there's no time," Nyssa said, struggling. "When that field ruptures, we'll be killed along with everyone on this planet."

"Turlough, she's not herself," Tegan said, trying to drag her away from the console. "And I don't care what the Doctor said; we're not leaving him!"

Turlough's hand dropped, but it fell on the ion bonder instead of the door lever. Giving Nyssa a murderous glare, he turned and lunged outside.

The Doctor barely had time to look up at the sounds of commotion before a green beam of light struck him from behind. He fell forward with a thump onto Xertes' machine. Steeling himself, Turlough darted forward, seized the Doctor's ankles and began hauling him towards the open doors of the TARDIS. The flashing meter on the floor shifted to an urgent three-tone alarm.

"Hurry, Turlough!" Nyssa called. "Tachyon readings at critical!"

"So come out here and help!" he barked. However, before Tegan could make up her mind whether to release Nyssa and lend a hand, Turlough's instinct for self-preservation kicked in. He lifted the Time Lord bodily, reeled across the lab and pitched headfirst over the TARDIS threshold, kicking the Doctor's legs clear of the doors. Tegan punched the door lever with her elbow. There was an ominous popping, cracking sound of strained metal beginning to give way as the doors swung shut. It sounded like half the laboratory was crashing down around them.

Shrugging free of Tegan's grasp, Nyssa reached past her quietly to press the dematerialization switch, forgoing the Doctor's dramatics. The time rotor began to rise and fall. The resonant _choom_ of the initial downstroke sounded perfectly normal. Then came that awful staccato chugging noise that they had learned to dread. The grinding din rapidly escalated, until it sounded like the dying yowls of some vast primordial creature being dragged down into a black hole. There was a sickening sideways yaw. They felt curiously suspended, disembodied, as if space itself was ebbing away.

"What's happening?" Tegan gasped, clinging to Nyssa.

"Temporal surge..." Her voice rose to an impossibly high pitch. The rotor rose and plunged at a rate quicker than the eye could follow. Turlough's yell was lost in a screaming, shearing roar as the floor sliced sideways and threw them off their feet. Then it was over. The central console slowed to a stately, regular pulse, the gentle TARDIS hum returned, and the floor stopped trying to part ways with the room. A haze of white smoke began to pour out of the console.

"Here we go again," Turlough grumbled, rolling over to peer at the Doctor. He was asleep, pale as his shirt, blissfully unaware of his ship's latest travails. Nyssa, who had fetched up in a heap under the console, raised her head to check on her friends, then let her chin drop onto her arms as if she planned to take a nap there.

"I'm not helping you up," Tegan said, standing over her with hands on her hips. "You were going to scoop up the Doctor right along with that dratted machine and toss him out to die in the time vortex! Nyssa, how could you?"

"No, she wasn't." Dusting himself off, Turlough gave Nyssa a sour look and set the ion bonder back on the console. "Saint Nyssa the Immaculate's reputation remains spotless. No one would ever suspect her of being more devious than I am." He reached under the console and righted the small woman rather more gently than his sarcasm would suggest. "Congratulations."

"Thanks," Nyssa said faintly as he hoisted her to her feet. She leaned into him for a moment. "That was very brave, Turlough." Clearing his throat, he gave her back an awkward pat.

"Oh, Nyssa!" Tegan's eyes widened. "You set us up."

"I'm sorry, Tegan. The Doctor warned us not to get too close to the machine; it might've killed you. I couldn't ask. It had to be your choice." She held out a hand and drew Tegan in as well, hugging her fiercely. "Thank you don't tell him."

Turlough snorted. "My lips are sealed."

* * *

"The Doctor says he'll trade you a medical kit for the orange juice. He also ordered you not to go anywhere near the controls again, until that head of yours—" Tegan pulled up short just inside the door, goggling at the room's contents. "Hey! What happened to your lab?"

Nyssa's lab bench and all of its equipment had disappeared. In their place were the whimsical furnishings of a teenaged girl's room: scalloped dressing table and mirror, plants peeping from tall vases, a fluffy white carpet, art nouveau lamps, one of the

peacock chairs, and a twin bed that had somehow migrated back from Tegan's room. Nyssa was lounging under an old-fashioned lace bedspread in her pajamas, propped up on pillows with an icegel compress behind her head. Yawning, she pushed away the book slipping off her knees and sat up. "Scattered across the vortex, I expect. I wish there'd been time to embed a telemetry probe; the disintegration would've made a fascinating study."

"You... jettisoned all your stuff?" Tegan looked around in growing dismay. "Ann's butterfly costume? Oh, Nyssa, your china collection. And... rabbits, the Richter's cure!"

"It's safe. I left it in the main lab of the TARDIS yesterday. Thanks for reminding me; I need to run a few tests."

"Not today," Tegan insisted, coming over to perch on the edge of the bed. A flutter of burgundy and violet tulle hanging from a stand distracted her. Looking up, she was dumbfounded to see the pretty but impractical Trakenite court garb that Nyssa had been wearing on the day they met. "What happened here? Something to do with temporal distortion?"

"My room was expendable, and I knew its precise coordinates," Nyssa said. "Unfortunately, the TARDIS' internal architecture database is corrupted. All it could find was the oldest saved file for my quarters. It doesn't matter."

"I guess not." Tegan's face fell. It was a blunt reminder that Nyssa's departure had only been postponed. "You can't leave quite yet, though. The Doctor says he wants to stop off somewhere called Vektris for repairs. I don't think he likes your driving. If you ask me, the TARDIS has been acting up ever since Turlough snuck on board. Can a time machine have allergic reactions?"

"Tegan," Nyssa chided.

"Oh, good. You're back to normal." Tegan chuckled at Nyssa's exasperated huff. "Now stop hiding under there and let's get you patched up. You're not fooling me." She unsnapped the top of the kit and waved a tube in front of her nose. "Remember this stuff?"

"I'm fine, really. Just a headache." Nevertheless, she submitted without further protest. It was not the first time their adventures had required such a ritual, after all. Only when Tegan insisted on unbuttoning her collar did she balk. "Don't look so worried," Nyssa said, reading her friend's distraught expression. "I had to let him get close enough to stun him. He didn't realize I was armed."

Tegan tried for a smile and dabbed at the finger-marks around her neck. "Sounds like you gave as good as you got. Wish I'd been there to help."

"So do I. I missed you." She closed her eyes and leaned back, relaxing as the analgesic began to sink in. "You took Lasarti away just in time, by the way."

"Huh?" Tegan said, pausing her ministrations with a puzzled frown. "Oh, for heaven's sake. I can't leave you alone for five seconds, can I? Don't tell me you got into another scrap with the Master after we left!"

"Not really," Nyssa said. "He just needed to salvage his wounded pride by gloating."

_Nyssa trailed after Tegan and Lasarti as the office door closed behind them with a click of finality. She drew the bolt to make certain. "See you soon, Lasarti," she whispered, feeling a tug like an invisible thread playing out from the spool of her heart as their voices faded away. She longed to follow, but time's fences were closing around her once more._

_Waiting for Tegan to get clear, she heard a scuff on the carpet behind her. She folded her arms and turned, blocking the exit. "Oh. It's you." _

_"Tsk. Manners, my dear, manners." Garbed once more in ostentatious black velvet, the Master lounged against the faux stone column, gloved hand cradling the slim black weapon aimed at her head. "But where is the Doctor? His last-minute rescue is surely overdue." _

_She shrugged. "Not coming, I'm afraid."_

_"Not coming? Oh, that does not sound like him at all. Even at his most thick-headed, he should have noticed your absence by now. Could you possibly be lying, my dear?"_

_"I told him to leave. This is my home, after all. He'll be going as soon as Tegan gets back."_

_"And he... _obeyed..._ you?" He laughed, lingering over his favorite word. "Well, well, you've outgrown him, I see. Excellent. Perhaps I haven't lost you after all. Come, Nyssa. What could be more perfect than father and daughter traversing time and space together, sampling the wonders of the cosmos? And there is still much I could teach you. Nyssa, my dear, come back to me."_

_Even now, his hypnotic cadences were oddly soothing. The delicate suturing of Lasarti's memories had left her mentally drained, lowering her psychic defenses. Her body ached with more bruises than she could remember since her imprisonment on Veln. Some small part of her still longed for the doting care promised by that musical voice which her heart trusted even if reason rebelled. She could feel her muscles going slack. Stamping her heel to shake herself awake, she turned her back deliberately and reached for the door. _

_She heard his sharp intake of breath. At least she had surprised him. The skin between her shoulderblades prickled, as if flesh could sense the weapon trained upon her back._

_He spoke with a trace of grudging respect. "No? A pity. Perhaps I'll return in a few years and check on my son-in-law's progress. Until we meet again, Nyssa."_

"...and then he left," Nyssa concluded simply. "I heard his TARDIS dematerialize. That's what I was stewing about when I found you. I'm afraid I was rather short with you. I apologize."

"It's all right. You'd had a time of it. I was just afraid that—" Tegan's voice hitched. "Hey, _I'm_ the one who should apologize. I nearly got you and that boy killed!"

"No, Tegan, you didn't." It was her chiding tone again, but fond. "Or, if you put it that way, I nearly got _you_ killed. Remember what the Doctor used to say about being in the wrong place at the right time? If you hadn't helped me find a way aboard the Master's TARDIS, Lasarti would still have been taken, but they could be anywhere in time or space by now. We'd never have been able to find him."

"Yeah, maybe." Tegan sighed. "I just wish I'd been able to keep him safe, like you asked."

"Ultimately, you did. You were the one who figured out how to channel that explosion into the time vortex."

"I don't see what that has to do with— Oh! That's your bug zapper!" Tegan slapped a hand against her knee as realization dawned. "The Master won't be able to penetrate that tachyon explosion, will he?"

"The disruption to the time vortex should settle after a few decades, but I think he'll lose interest in Lasarti once he's rebuilt his own version of the device. So my family is safe." Nyssa's eyes softened. "And besides, I have you to thank for sending Lasarti my way in the first place. So you see, I owe you for rather more than keeping him out of the Master's clutches."

"Well, yeah. When you put it that way." Tegan grinned. "So, do I get an invite to the wedding?"

"You did, but it seems to have gone astray somewhere between Terminus and the TARDIS."

"I'll just have to come by for your fiftieth, then!" Tegan finished smearing ointment on Nyssa's left ankle and looked up. "Okay, anything else?"

"Well..." Nyssa pushed her hair off the nape of her neck. "Not pretty, I'm afraid."

"Ow. That's a nasty knock." Tegan slathered the swollen bump on the back of her head gingerly, biting her lip when Nyssa flinched. "Sorry. Maybe we should get you to a real doctor when we land. Just to be sure?"

"A real doctor says it's a mild concussion, the patient's pupils respond normally to light stimulus, and three to seven days' rest are indicated. As I recall, Vektris is a resort planet, so that's exactly what's in store for us." Nyssa touched her hand. "Thanks. That feels much better."

"Three to seven days," Tegan echoed, screwing the lid back on the salve and addressing her fingernails. "Let's make it seven, okay? Just to be sure?"

"I expect that will be up to the Doctor. Or, really, the TARDIS." She watched as Tegan made a show of tidying up the medical kit before putting it on the floor, keeping her face averted. The plaintive note in her voice was impossible to miss. "Tegan." Nyssa hitched herself around so that they were sitting side by side.

"Mmm?" Tegan wiped an eye furtively with a knuckle.

"You could come with me, you know," Nyssa said. "If you wanted. You'd be welcome to stay."

"What?" Tegan turned and gaped at her, incredulous. "As what, a third wheel?"

"As my best friend." She slipped an arm loosely around her shoulders. "You're family, Tegan. I've told Lasarti and the children all about you; they'd be delighted to meet , this time."

"Oh. Um, thanks." Tegan sat staring at her toes as she struggled to absorb the idea. It took her some while to find her voice. "Your best friend. Wouldn't it be a little weird, with me looking like one of your kids? And Lasarti's pushing sixty now, right?"

"Yes, but synthetic DNA augmentation and other medical advances have extended human longevity."

"There you go with your science mumbo jumbo again. I bet your whole family talks that way. And— hang it all, without the TARDIS' telepathic circuits, I wouldn't be able to understand a word you're saying, would I?"

Nyssa smiled. "I've been speaking English with you ever since Amsterdam; I wondered if you'd noticed. The Doctor taught me while you were gone. But yes, you'd have to make do with conventional computer translation, until you learned Zarachi."

Tegan looked torn. "I'm not ready to say goodbye to you, Nyssa. Really, I'm not. But..." She shook her head. "I'm not ready to say goodbye to Earth, either. Once we leave the TARDIS, there's no telling when or if the Doctor will ever come back. And I don't know if I could find a place in your world."

"I do," Nyssa said firmly. "You've found a place aboard the TARDIS, and you've handled every challenge the universe has thrown at us. Zarat shouldn't present you with any difficulty. But I understand. I shouldn't ask, when I know the cost of leaving home. I... I just want you to know that you'll always have a place where I am."

Tegan released a quavery breath. "Thanks."

"Well." Nyssa squeezed her shoulders, giving them a playful shake. "Enough heavy thoughts. Let's make the most of our holiday on Vektris, hm? We can relax, enjoy the sunshine, sip drinks and do absolutely nothing for a change."

"Sounds lovely." Tegan turned to hug her back. "Now get some sleep. That doctor-lady said you ought to rest up, and she sounded like a smart cookie."

* * *

"Doctor, do you know where Nyssa's got to?" Some hours later, Tegan stood at the door to the console room, arms folded. "She was sleeping earlier, but now she's not in her room. Turlough hasn't seen her either. You don't think—"

"Don't worry." He smiled. "I've been here since supper. Nyssa won't give us the slip."

Tegan relaxed. "Not that we want to hold her prisoner, eh? It's just..."

"I know." He flipped a few controls to lock down cruise mode, then stepped away from the console. "It's been a long day, Tegan, for you as much as anyone, I suspect. Get some rest. I'll find her."

Normally, the Doctor would seek Nyssa in the arboretum where, long ago, he had reconstructed a small grove from her homeworld as a coming of age present. It had been worth all the labor of sifting through Gallifrey's botanical databanks to tease out that rare bright smile from a girl who never cried, but almost never laughed. But she was no longer a child, to take refuge in the solace of green, growing things when life outside the TARDIS became too much to bear.

The library was empty. He turned his steps towards the laboratory, careful to enter quietly so as not to distract the slight figure bent over the eyepiece of a complicated-looking scanner. Just as he entered, she made a frustrated growl and raised a fist to slam it against the work surface.

"Gently," he said. "It's less sturdy than the TARDIS console."

"Oh, Doctor," she said. "Sorry."

"No need, I just didn't want your samples to go flying." He nodded to the medical canister sitting next to her with the lid open, one of the precious phials sitting at her elbow. "What's wrong?"

"The Richter's antigen. I think it's... changed, although I'll have to sequence it to be sure." She cocked her head at him. "I know how little you care for upkeep, Doctor, but a third of this equipment needs recalibrating, and another third needs replacing. To say nothing of your fondness for antiques."

"If you don't appreciate antiquities, you shouldn't have taken up with a Time Lord," he retorted. "Most of my companions are more interested in the wardrobe and food machine than the quantum scanner. But you have a point. Perhaps you can provide me with a shopping list before you go."

"If I were staying, I'd tackle some of the maintenance for you." She sighed, closed the lid of the medical canister carefully, and ran a thumb around the seal. Then she pivoted to face him. "How's the TARDIS?"

"Limping. She's never been the same since Terminus, but lately she's been shedding rooms every time we materialize. If I can't isolate the fault, I may have to rebuild her interior from scratch. And then, perhaps, we can take you wherever you need to go."

"Terminus," she said. "I can catch a shuttle from there."

"Of course." He bowed his head. "Don't stay up too late working. As long as you're here, you have time. And... Nyssa?"

"Yes?"

"I'd like my ion bonder back, please."

"Oh, right." She fished it from the pocket of her robe and held it out, unrepentant. "The Master didn't approve either."

"Hm." He reclaimed the instrument and dropped it into his own pockets, from which she doubted it would be unearthed for the next half-century. He turned to go.

"Doctor?"

He paused with his fingers on the door handle.

Tegan's plaintive _Let's make it seven, okay?_ was still echoing in her mind. "I do need to get back to 3530, but I find I'm... not quite ready to leave. It's selfish, but I'd like a few more good memories of you all to carry with me. Some new stories to tell when I return home."

"For old times' sake." He turned back, thrusting his hands in his pockets and slouching against the doorframe. "Good memories, eh? You know, Tegan's never seen Stockbridge."

"Not this time. I'd like something more fascinating than cricket, please," she said, just to see him pout. "Surely there's a unique biosphere you never got around to showing me, or an unusual solar system, or some ancient ruin. Maybe even someplace safe, if you can bear three monster-free jumps in succession."

He looked aggrieved. "Where's the fun in that? You were never this picky when you were younger."

"Go away." Fan-lines crinkled around her eyes. "Goodnight, Doctor."

"Nyssa." For a moment, the old man peeked out from behind the young man's eyes. "Before it slips my mind. I think you mentioned something about your past, my future. I'm not at all sure I had the chance to thank you properly, when—"

"Now, really, Doctor. I oughtn't to answer that."

"Oh, good." The bright, boyish grin returned. "Goodnight, Nyssa."

She stared at the door as it closed silently between them. It was comforting to know that when she left, he would still have one more appointment to keep with her younger self in that place where dreams and death were one and the same. Eyes glistening — but she never wept openly, not for Traken, not for her father, not for Adric, not for the all-too-human Time Lord who had striven to fill her father's shoes — she turned back to her work with a sad smile.

"You did, Doctor. And you will."


	14. Author's Note

_Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed this story, I'd love to hear from you in the comments!_

**Where to find these old Doctor Who characters if you want to know more about them...**

A good fanfic should be stand-alone, so that someone who doesn't know the fandom can jump in and follow and enjoy the story.

However, obviously, this is chock-full of references to some great classic _Who_ episodes over the years.

**_TELEVISION: _**

First of all: **Keeper of Traken • Logopolis • Castrovalva**  
The Master destroys Nyssa's home planet, steals her father's body, kills Tegan's aunt, wipes out a third of the universe, and kills the fourth Doctor— and that's just the first two stories. In the last one, Nyssa and Tegan help the confused, newly-regenerated Doctor heal and escape a bizarre village where the Master has trapped them.

Second: **Arc of Infinity.** Not the greatest episode, but it's got Nyssa acting as the Doctor's loyal defender against the Time Lords. Pacifist though she is, she holds the High Council of Gallifrey at gunpoint to save him.

Third: **Kinda **and **Snakedance.** These are famous classic _Who_ stories, in which the Mara, an evil spirit in the form of a snake, first possesses Tegan and then uses her to infect or terrorize others. If you can find the _Kinda_ remake with some CGI touch-up on the snake, it's powerful; if not, just pay attention to the story and forgive the bad special effects.

_**AUDIO: **_

Fourth: There's a ton of great Five & Nyssa audio episodes that Big Finish shoehorned in after the end of season 19, when the Doctor left Tegan in Heathrow, and the end of _Arc of Infinity,_ when she returns. Recommended: **The Game, Primeval, Fanfare for the Common Men, 1001 Nights, **or (for laughs) **Castle of Fear,** which is one of their few light-hearted stories. The friendship, love, respect and trust between Nyssa and Five comes out in these wonderful episodes in a way that classic _Who_ TV scriptwriters only glimpsed.

Fifth: **Circular Time.** This Big Finish audio is an anthology of stories exploring the evolution of the Doctor and Nyssa's friendship over the years. Part Four is the fifth Doctor's dream/hallucination that takes place entirely in his mind as he's dying. This story introduces Lasarti, his lucid dreaming machine, and Nyssa's use of that machine to reach the Doctor's mind and help him escape the Master's dream-trap.

**And Finally:**

Big Finish Audio's classic Who stories with the actors of Five, Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough reuniting to record all-new adventures, which can be purchased for download or CD on their website. There's 12 stories with this batch of classic Who actors/characters so far, with another trilogy due in 2015. **Cobwebs**, **Cradle of the Snake**, and **Emerald Tiger** are my favorites, or **Heroes of Sontar** for a comic relief episode.


End file.
